Ruben Neves returned for Wolves to replace the suspended Joao Moutinho for the visit of Chelsea. Willy Boly also came in for Adama Traore for the Premier League clash at Molineux. Frank Lampard made one change for the visitors with Christian Pulisic starting in place of Mateo Kovacic, who dropped to the bench.
Here’s a strange fact I noticed while researching this game: last season only two Premier League teams won, on average, more than 1.65 points per away game: Liverpool and Manchester City. The season before three teams managed it – that pair plus Tottenham. This season that number is currently being exceeded by Manchester United, Leicester, Spurs, Aston Villa, Chelsea, Southampton, West Ham and Everton. Eight teams! That’s two more than the number (six, maths fans) that are managing it at home, and achieved despite Liverpool and City having the 16th and ninth best away records in the division respectively – had either of them performed to anywhere near their normal high standards on the road this season there would be 10 sides, half the entire division, performing on their travels at a level normally only reached by the very elite.
I’ll admit, it’s not a statistic that has a great bearing on this game, but I considered it curious and wanted to tell someone about it.
Another thing: approximately 8% of all league games finish goalless, but only four of the 109 matches played by Chelsea and Wolves, a piffling 3.7%, have done so – and of those one was played in 1911, and another in 1925. There have been nearly as many 5-2 wins in this fixture (three) as 0-0 draws. If past results are any indicator (and they’re not, really, but bear with me) it is more likely that one of these sides will score six (which has happened give times) than both will score none. Only about 0.8% of league matches end 3-3, a much more unlikely scoreline than 0-0 – except in games between Chelsea and Wolves, when 4.6% of all games have ended with six goals shared equally.
As I’m sure you’ll agree, this is very exciting. As is the fact that a Chelsea win would take them, at least temporarily, top of the table, while a Wolves win would take them to ninth. So let’s hunker down and look forward to sharing a warming evening/morning/whatever-it-is-where-you-are round the Premier League brazier. Welcome! Here’s a Chelsea-focused kind-of-preview thing from yesterday:
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