Sunderland vs Wolves | U23 Match Preview

Just like the senior team, Wolves under-23s are heading to the north east this Sunday, aiming to replicate their most comprehensive Premier League 2 win of the season so far against Sunderland.

Rob Edwards’ side are back in league action after recording their fifth draw in succession when they travelled to Oxford United to face a team full of experienced first team players in the Premier League Cup on Monday night.

Wolves are currently sitting second in the Division 2 table – just three points behind leaders Reading – and will be high in confidence following a 7-0 victory over bottom-of-the-table Sunderland when the two sides met at New Bucks Head back in September.

WHEN

Sunday 12pm

WHERE

Eppleton Colliery Welfare Ground

LAST THREE

Wolves

1-1 v Oxford United (A) PLC

0-0 v Aston Villa (H)

1-1 v Swansea City (A) PLC

Sunderland

1-3 v Middlesbrough (A)

4-1 v Peterborough United (A) PLC

0-2 v Sunderland (H)

WHAT THE BOSS THINKS

On Sunderland

We’ll be going to Sunderland confident. Everyone’s in good form, and the performance earlier on in the season against them was very good. But they travelled a long way, and everything went for us that night, so we’re not expecting the same game again.

Although we’d love that to be the case, we know it won’t and it will be a tough game. They’re going to be well up for it, they’re not going to allow that to happen again. There will be quite a lot of pride at stake as well as them just wanting to win any football match.

We’ve got to travel up there this time and they’re going to make it difficult for us.

On recent run of draws

I’ve been really pleased with the performances and we’ve just got to keep going and believing in what we do, try to do it even better and be a bit more ruthless in that final third.

We’ve had a lot of good, consistent performances. I can’t really single many games out where we were poor. There might have been the odd half, half-an-hour or even 10 minutes where we were slightly off it – against Stoke for example.

But there’s been nothing wrong with our performances. Take Villa last week, we played very well and just didn’t get the goal, so there’s not much we need to change.

It was good against Oxford that we were able to make a few changes of personnel and the lads that stepped up have continued playing the same way, which is really pleasing.

NEXT FIVE

14/12 Fulham (H)

7/1 West Bromwich Albion (A)

11/1 Reading (H)

21/1 Hull City (A)

1/2 Newcastle (A)

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