James Collins had a mixture of first-teamers and returning loaness at his disposal last week, but with many of those players having not played much football during the festive period, they took a while to warm up before fighting back against Burnley to earn a point at Aggborough.
The FA Youth Cup fourth round visit to Crystal Palace last Saturday featured a lot of the development team’s regulars, meaning only Dexter Lembikisa had any significant time on the pitch in Premier League 2, but Collins is expecting the side to look back to normal this evening.
Wolves will be hoping to get revenge over Sunderland after the Black Cats claimed a 3-1 win at Aggborough earlier in the season, but they face a team who have picked up some positive results already in 2022, with Sunderland claiming a 3-3 draw away at Leeds in the Premier League Cup before a 2-0 victory at Reading in Division 2.
However, Wolves will be boosted by their second-half performance last time out, which saw the team dominate and create plenty of dangers, while Sunderland fell to a 10-man Middlesbrough side.
Supporters can watch all the action from Sunderland live this evening, as the match is streamed online via wolves.co.uk, the Wolves App and the Wolves YouTube channel.
The live Wolves TV match stream, beginning at 6.55pm, can be found here, or click here to watch on YouTube, while supporters can also catch download the Wolves App now on iOS here and on Android here.
WHEN
Monday, 7pm
WHERE
Eppleton Colliery Welfare Ground, Sunderland
LAST THREE
Wolves
1-1 vs Burnley (H)
0-0 vs West Ham United (A) PLC
2-4 vs Fulham (A)
Sunderland
2-3 vs Middlesbrough (A)
2-0 vs Reading (H)
3-3 vs Leeds United (A) PLC
WHAT THE BOSS THINKS
Collins expects to see many of his under-23 regulars back this week due to many of his side taking part in the FA Youth Cup last weekend, which lead to a more experienced line-up to face Burnley.
He said: “I would say don’t be kidded by this, but the Youth Cup game was Saturday afternoon and it went to 120 minutes, and our policy is to get the young ones in and play with as many young players as we can, and get the older ones either in the first-team or out on loan.
“Today, we felt because the lads have had 120 minutes with the youth team, we tried to leave them all out. We had to use Dexter for 45, he was the only one, but we were reluctant to even do that, so today was an anomaly to what we’ll see next week and the week after.
“But it was nice to have the senior players with us and good to see them play because there’s a lot for us to learn.”
