Will the winning streak continue? There are three more Premier League matches for the year 2018, and Liverpool will already be at it again on Friday, facing Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C. (Wolves). Liverpool will travel to the Molineux stadium for the first time since their 3-0 victory against Wolves in 2012 when Craig Bellamy, Andy Carrol and Dirk Kuyt were on the scoresheet.

There has been a back-to-back hype of exciting football recently, with the 1 – 0 Champions League victory against Napoli on 11 December 2018, and 3 – 1 Premier League victory against our fierce rivals, Manchester United, thanks to a second half brace by the Swiss International Xherdan Shaqiri on 16 December 2018.

The current Wolverhampton Wanderers team remains a shadow of the team that faced Liverpool in 2012 which was led by Mick McCarthy. Coach Nuno has revolutionised this team that is currently 7th in the Premier League, despite only being promoted into the league this year. Players like Ruben Neves, that anchors the midfield from which a couple of assists and goals has been scored, has been instrumental in this team. Wolves normally line up with a straight 3-4-1-2 with the former Liverpool man Conor Coady marshalling the troops from the heart of the Wolves defence. Alongside Ruben Neves is the former Ligue 1 winner with Monaco Joao Moutinho who knows all about being a big player in a big game. Apart from Neves and Moutinho, the wing back Matt Doherty is an immense threat on the right hand side and it will be interesting to see how Liverpool handle his pace and creativity.

Even if Wolves have home-ground advantage, Liverpool is very determined to remain on the top spot on Christmas day, with another win. Jurgen Klopp has stated that it is important to focus on one (current) opponent at a time, therefore the entire focus now is the upcoming Wolves game. [1] Wolves won their last three games, scoring 2 goals in each. The team seems to be in good form; and have performed relatively well against the rest of the Top 6 teams – only losing Tottenham Hotspurs.

There is an immense amount of pressure on every EPL match, as Liverpool is the only remaining undefeated team, and only one point ahead of current title holders Manchester City. In Klopp’s ‘Wolves pre-match press conference’, the boss has said “Only City can stop City, to be honest – not we, we have to play our game and try to get as many points as possible.” [1] Thus, with little focus on City or any opponent really, Liverpool will just have to stay focused on the team itself and winning as many points as possible.

The Liverpool midfield have greatly strengthened and seemed to have reached a calibrating balance in terms of rotating players. Whilst the mid is renewed, the defence seemed to be a risk before the Manchester United game as defenders Joe Gomez, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Joel Matip are ruled out for a few weeks each – due to injury. Additionally, James Milner who plays a vast number of positions including right-back, could also not partake as defender on Sunday due to injury. Thus, Nathaniel Clyne stepped in after not playing in a while, due to previous injury. Dejan Lovren has also been in recovery, but managed to play defence with Robertson, Clyne and van Dijk on Sunday.

Liverpool line up: A recent sterling second half blitzkrieg from Xherdan Shaqiri has left many Liverpool fans wondering if the Swiss should start ahead of Firmino who has been breathing hot and cold the past few games. Shaqiri can easily fill the false 9 positional play that Klopp requires by both assisting in build-up play and running lines in and between the defensive structures of Wolves. However, bringing on Shaqiri as a super-substitute has been a winning game plan as well. Furthermore, it would be interesting to see if Klopp names an unchanged side or go for a rotational policy to rest key players such Salah, Mane and Van Dijk.

Substitution options could be Sturridge and Shaqiri for Firmino/Mane/Salah, Clyne for Milner, Hendo and/or Shaqiri for Keita. This is all dependent on how the game progresses, but the predicted starting XI is below:

Prediction: Wolverhampton will come out all guns blazing with the determination of beating the only unbeaten side in the league after 17 games. The Liverpool defence will have their hands full with striker Jimenez who loves sneaking in and around defenders to nick a goal.

Liverpool should be able to pull off a win against Wolves after coming from a fantastic win against fierce rivals. However, this is the premier league and bogey teams are everywhere. Having said that, the score prediction is Liverpool 2-0 Wolverhampton for tomorrow.

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