Relegation battling Wolves face a difficult home clash against European chasing Liverpool at Molineux.
Victory could see Wolves climb to 14th if Leicester lose elsewhere with West Ham and Leeds not in action until Saturday teatime and Sunday afternoon respectively.
Liverpool meanwhile can go sixth with a win if results elsewhere swing in their favour.
Team News
Wolves have no fresh injury concerns to report as Boubacar Traore (groin), Chiquinho, Sasa Kalajdzic (both knee) and Pedro Neto (ankle) remain ruled out.
Liverpool could welcome Fabio Carvalho back into contention after he missed their FA Cup exit at Brighton with a knock.
Nat Phillips (illness) is also set to return and could replace Ibrahima Konate, who is now ruled out for a few weeks with a hamstring injury.
Virgil Van Dijk (hamstring), Arthur Melo (thigh), Luis Diaz (knee), Roberto Firmino and Diogo Jota (both calf) remain absent.
When is Kick-Off?
Wolves will host Liverpool at Molineux in a 3pm GMT kick-off on Saturday 4 February, although the match won’t be televised live in UK.
Stat Attack
- Wolves are winless in their last 11 league meetings against Liverpool (L11).
- Liverpool are unbeaten in eight previous Premier League visits to Wolves (W6, D2).
- Wolves have lost each of their last two home matches against Liverpool in Premier League by 1-0 result.
- Jose Sa has conceded 30 goals in 20 league appearances for Wolves this season compared to 40 conceded goals in 37 appearances across entirety of last season.
- Liverpool are yet to score from a free-kick in the Premier League this season.
Prediction
Having been expectedly thrashed by Manchester City a fortnight ago, Wolves have had almost two weeks to prepare for this game where I do expect them to try and defend deep again and deploy the counter-attack approach.
Having seen their FA Cup title defence end last weekend with a largely wasteful attacking performance and poor defending, Liverpool now need to reset because the league could be their only qualification path into Europe next season.
Ibrahima Konate’s injury though further compounds their defensive issues on top of a misfiring attack, so I would like to see them just show more patience in their finishing, which was particularly evident in Harvey Elliott’s goal against Brighton last weekend.
Now if Liverpool can indeed play more clinically but mount a robust defensive effort, they should scrape a result but Wolves will know how to test this out-of-form away team from their two FA Cup clashes last month.
A draw therefore will be a reasonable result but I do think that Wolves can spring a surprise if they can target Liverpool’s back line with the same intensity and pressure, which paid off for Brighton last weekend.
Prediction: Wolves 2-1 Liverpool
Result: Wolves 3-0 Liverpool