It’s early in the 2025-26 Barclays Premier League season, but the table already carries more intrigue than it has in past seasons. In each of 2023-24 and 2024-25, the three teams promoted from the Championship went straight back down to the second tier. This season, though, it’s a Premier League mainstay — Wolves — most in danger of the drop.
Though there are still 28 matches left in the season, Wolves needs to start winning now if they want to secure Premier League football next season. Their next match will come at 3 p.m. ET (8 p.m. local) against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.
The Blues are -270 favorites to win and +425 to draw at DraftKings Sportsbook, while Wolverhampton is +500 on the Moneyline.
Chelsea vs. Wolves prediction, pick
The disaster for Wolves has been multi-faceted: they’ve scored just seven goals in 10 Premier League games, tied with Nottingham Forest for the fewest in the division, while conceding 22, the most in the league. Only two players, Marshall Munetsi and Ladislav Krejčí, have even recorded multiple goal contributions. They’ve taken zero points from newly-promoted sides this season, losing 3-1 to Leeds United, 2-0 to Sunderland, and 3-2 to Burnley, and they’ve managed to produce better chances than their opponent only three times. In between the sticks, Sam Johnstone and José Sá have combined for a league-worst negative-4.5 post-shot expected goal plus/minus, and despite forcing the longest shots of any team, they’ve conceded the most goals per shot on target. Wolverhampton also ranks dead last in goal-creating actions per 90 minutes on both sides of the ball, and it is currently without a manager after it fired Vitor Pereira earlier this week.
Wolves make Chelsea’s problems look insignificant. The Blues haven’t been great this season by their standards, sitting seventh in a table in which second-place Manchester City and 11th-place Aston Villa are separated by just four points. They’ve been eking through with narrow results in the league, and a 2-1 loss to newly-promoted Sunderland is disappointing even if the Black Cats sit fourth in the table overall. The Blues are also coming off of a disappointing 2-2 draw with Azerbaijani side Qarabağ in the Champions League, though they started a less-than-full-strength squad. The team’s new signings have been a mixed bag: while João Pedro has three goals and Estêvão produced a winner against Liverpool, Liam Delap has missed time with a hamstring injury and was recently suspended after receiving a red card in the Carabao Cup match against Wolverhampton. Chelsea could also be better in the back: Robert Sánchez has been among the league’s worst shot-stoppers by post-shot expected goal plus/minus. The Blues are tied for second in goals scored but merely tied for seventh in goals conceded.
Chelsea doesn’t have to be anywhere near its best to win this one. Although the Blues will continue to be without Cole Palmer, who contributed to all three goals in their Club World Cup final triumph over Paris Saint-Germain, they’ve been fine without him, posting a 7-1-2 record in all competitions since he suffered the groin injury on September 20. Stamford Bridge should be somewhat of an advantage: even though it has picked up just seven points from five matches at the venue, Chelsea went 12-5-2 there last season, including a 3-1 win over Wolves. Wolverhampton has picked up just one win on the road, scoring only one goal, which came against Spurs off of a rebound. Although Spurs’ defensive metrics have been similar to the Blues’, rebounds are based more on luck than anything else. Chelsea could easily win to zero.
