Wolves v Spurs – history, stats and facts

Tonight, we make the trip to the West Midlands as we return to Premier League action against Wolves (7.15pm kick-off).

Ahead of the meeting at Molineux, we take a look at the history of the fixture, some of its recent key moments, the statistics behind both sides’ seasons so far, as well as the pre-match view from our opposition.

The history

We've visited Molineux six times in the Premier League and only once come away empty handed. In fact, our strong record at Molineux extends back as far as April, 1981, as we have lost just once there in the last 39 years.

That sole defeat came just over a decade ago in February, 2010, as David Jones scored the only goal of the game for the hosts. However, in our other five such meetings since 1992 in the reformed top flight, we have only failed to pick up maximum points in one game.

Going back to our first Premier League encounter with Wolves at their 131-year-old home in May, 2004, we took all three points on the final day of the season with a 2-0 win. It was Wolves academy graduate Robbie Keane who opened the scoring for us against his former side as he converted Mark Yeates’ cross 11 minutes before the break. Jermain Defoe nipped in to seal the win with number two on 57 minutes.

Our last three visits to Molineux have all ended in victory, including each of our two trips to Wolverhampton since boss Nuno Espirito Santo led his side to promotion from the Championship in May, 2018.

In the November later that year, we stormed into a 3-0 lead against the men in gold with goals from Erik Lamela, Lucas Moura and Harry Kane. The hosts then pulled two back in the second half, but we held on for all three points as we came away with a 3-2 win. Then, last December, Lucas was again on target as we once more took the lead within the opening 10 minutes at Molineux. Adama Traore drew Wolves level with just over 20 minutes to go, but we found a winner in the late, late stages as Jan Vertonghen headed home brilliantly on 90 minutes to give us the victory. Lucas has been on target for us in each of his appearances at Molineux and, alongside Harry Kane, is our joint-top scorer against Wolves in the current squad.

Our latest meeting, however, ended in disappointment as in our March encounter, earlier this year, Wolves twice came from behind to win 3-2 at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Steven Bergwijn and Serge Aurier had twice scored to give us the lead but our summer arrival Matt Doherty and Diogo Jota, now at Liverpool, levelled the scores with over 30 minutes still to play. Raul Jimenez then scored a 73rd-minute winner for the visitors.

This will be just the third match against Wolves for Jose Mourinho in his career to date and, so far, it has been a mixed bag of results for our Head Coach. The first was in September, 2018, while he was Manchester United - that game finished 1-1. The other two aforementioned encounters that have come since he took charge in November, 2019 – the 2-1 win at Molineux in December last year before the 3-2 home defeat in March.

Last five meetings

1 March, 2020 – Spurs 2-3 Wolves – Premier League
15 December, 2019 – Wolves 1-2 Spurs – Premier League
29 December, 2018 – Spurs 1-3 Wolves – Premier League
3 November, 2018 – Wolves 2-3 Spurs – Premier League
14 January, 2012 – Spurs 1-1 Wolves – Premier League

‘I expect a very difficult game’

Both sides come into this game on the back of defeats in the Premier League. We might have won 3-1 at Stoke City on Wednesday to progress to the Carabao Cup semi-finals yet we are currently on a run of three games with a victory in the league – including back-to-back defeats in our last two outings in the competition. Meanwhile Wolves were beaten 2-1 away at Burnley in their last Premier League game - that was their third defeat in their last four games.

A victory tonight could lift us as high as high as third while Wolves could move into the top half via a win. With both sides eager to return to winning ways though, Jose Mourinho knows that we have a very difficult game ahead of us at Molineux.

“If I would rate the difficulty of matches, all of them are difficult in the Premier League, but Wolves is especially difficult because they are a very good team,” Jose outlined. “They are in a similar situation to us in that they lost their last match, so the feeling will be not good, and the feeling will be to try to win it.

“They were always a good team, playing only with a back five, this season they went four, five, so in this moment we have the doubt in relation to that, but the quality of the players is there, the intensity is also there, so I expect a very difficult game.”

Just like against Leicester, when he welcomed his former colleague at Chelsea, Brendan Rodgers, tonight’s game will be another reunion in the dugout for Jose as he’ll be up against his former player, Nuno Espirito Santo. A goalkeeper in his playing days, Santo played under our Head Coach during his Porto days and was on the bench for Jose’s first Champions League triumph in 2004.

And Santo admitted, in his pre-match preview of the game, that it will be a pleasure for him to once again take on his former manager.

“It will be a pleasure to receive him in Molineux again,” the Wolves coach said. “I have huge admiration, as you can imagine, for Mourinho, on a personal level and as a manager. It's fantastic, so I’m not surprised at all with all the good things that he’s doing at Tottenham. I’m not surprised at all. It’s amazing.

“We expect a very tough game. We must get ready for it because we’re going to face a tough opponent, a talented squad, in a good moment. Let’s enjoy and play the game.”