Wolverhampton Wanderers will be looking to build on their impressive victory over Chelsea in midweek, as they travel to Turf Moor to face a Burnley side who are currently struggling down in 17th position in the Premier League.

The Midlands side currently sit in 10th position in the table, after thirteen games but only find themselves three points off the Europa League places and only four points off the Champions League spots.

  • The Opposition

Burnley come into the game having stood firm at Villa Park and gained a well-earned point. Despite the Villains having 27 shots, Burnley and Nick Pope stood their ground and didn’t let anything passed them.

Before their draw with Aston Villa, Burnley had looked good and began to show signs of improvement as they clinched a point at home to Everton and defeating Arsenal.

The obvious weakness for the Clarets is their lack of end product in front of goal. They have only scored 6 goals all season, which is the lowest in the whole of the league. Strikers Chris Wood and Ashley Barnes have failed to replica their previous form this season.

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The danger that Burnley pose to Wolves is their physical presence, especially with the likes of Wood, James Tarkowski and Barnes. 

  • Tactics and formation

Nuno Espirito Santo has been quite uncharacteristically chopping and changing his formations recently to try and find a way to allow Wolves to have all of their attacking talents on the pitch, whilst coping with the huge loss of Raúl Jimenez.

Against Arsenal, Liverpool and Aston Villa, Wolves played with a back four, and this was the first time that the system had been changed under the Portuguese boss.

The change came in the match against Southampton, due to Conor Coady having to self-isolate as he had come into contact with someone with COVID-19.

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This change worked and Wolves looked very good going forward, causing the Saints lots of trouble.

The system stuck for the game against Arsenal where Wolves played well but lost their main man Jimenez due to a fractured skull after a collision with David Luiz.

Since that game, however, the back four of Wolves has looked shaky with gaps appearing all over the place.

Wolves suffered a 4-0 defeat to Liverpool, before hosting local rivals Aston Villa, losing 1-0 due to a penalty in the 94th minute.

Nuno changed to a back 3 against Chelsea, which not only resulted in a much better performance but also a victory.

Podence showed his brilliance with a beautifully taken goal to cancel out Olivier Giroud’s first before Neto scored the winner in the 95th minute of play to clinch all three points for the midlands side.

Of course, we won’t know what system Nuno will opt with until 4:30pm on Monday night but it is more likely that Nuno will go with what he and the Wolves players know, which is the three at the back.

The way that Wolves played, especially in the second half against Chelsea, showed that they do have the capability to break down sides without Raúl in the side and there are goals in the side.

Neto, Podence and hopefully Fabio Silva, who fans are hoping will be able to get off the mark in the Premier League soon, are the main men for Wolves as they hope to leave Turf Moor with all three points.

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Predicted Line-Up (3-4-3)

Ruí Patricio, Nelson Semedo, Max Kilman, Conor Coady, Romain Saiss, Fernando Marçal, Ruben Neves, Joao Moutinho, Pedro Neto, Daniel Podence, Fabio Silva.

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