Leander Dendoncker makes Wolves prediction ahead of Aston Villa reunion
Aston Villa midfielder Leander Dendoncker switched from Wolves to Villa Park last summer and is enjoying a run in the first-team currently
Leander Dendoncker expects Aston Villa to discover a Wolverhampton Wanderers team who are intent on bouncing back from the drubbing they received at the hands of Brighton and Hove Albion this past weekend.
Villa head to Molineux next Saturday afternoon as the two West Midlands rivals meet for the reverse fixture, following the 1-1 draw and the sharing of spoils at Villa Park earlier this year. Wolves have been excellent at home and have strung three straight wins together on home soil under Julen Lopetegui, against Chelsea, Brentford and Crystal Palace.
They were soundly beaten in embarrassing fashion by the Seagulls this past weekend, though, one of only two Premier League sides who failed to score over the course of the weekend - the other being Villa, who were edged out 1-0 at Old Trafford by Manchester United. That defeat brought to an end a 10-match unbeaten run, amassing 26 points, under Unai Emery which had lifted them into the European spots.
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Midfielder Dendoncker swapped Wolves with Villa in the summer when he joined the club then under the management of Steven Gerrard; the Belgian international made over 150 appearances for Wanderers in his four-year spell at Molineux, but he'd found starts hard to come by in claret and blue - until recently under Emery, who has fielded him from the off in Villa's last four matches.
Ready to return to Molineux for the first time since his exit, Dendoncker spoke of what he expects from his old colleagues and how Villa must now respond themselves after the taste of defeat, which had become unfamiliar.
"The next game is away as well, which is also going to be tough, but we just need to keep going," Dendoncker told the club's in-house channel. "We've been doing outstanding the last few weeks, and we have to keep going. I obviously played at Wolves, so I know it's going to be a tough. They've been performing at home quite well in the last few weeks.
"I know they got a bad result this weekend and they will probably want to react, but it's up to us to go there with the same mentality as the last few weeks and try and get the three points.
"It's a shame that we lost [to Man United]. A draw would have been a good point for us, but we have to look to next week. It's a tough place to come, they obviously have very, very good players. We didn't play bad, maybe we should've scored."
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