An emotional return to Molineux beckons for ex-Wolverhampton Wanderers boss Nuno Espirito Santo, who takes his Nottingham Forest side to the West Midlands for Monday's Premier League encounter.
The Tricky Trees remain on course for a shock Champions League qualification after dispatching Everton last time out, while their hosts left it late to rescue a point away to Tottenham Hotspur.
Match preview
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Famed for masterminding Wolves' journey from the Championship to the Europa League, Santo is repeating his Old Gold trick at the City Ground and has already put in his nomination for the Premier League's Manager of the Season prize with half of the campaign done and dusted.
Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester City have only managed one goal between them against Everton this season, but Forest out-performed all three 'Big Six' titans during their trip to Goodison Park on December 29, as Chris Wood and Morgan Gibbs-White tormented the Toffees in a 2-0 triumph.
A scarcely believable fifth top-flight win on the spin meant that Forest celebrated New Year's Eve in third place in the Premier League table, and no matter what transpires over the weekend, they will still occupy a Champions League berth come kickoff on Monday.
Blessed with a stingy backline on par with their Wood-inspired attack, Forest have also kept clean sheets in each of their last three Premier League matches and are now aiming to win six straight matches in the competition for the first time since its 1992 rebranding.
Not since the 1966-67 campaign have the Garibaldi prevailed in six consecutive top-flight games, but their penchant for fast starts suggests that the record is there to be broken; Forest have scored the first goal in 15 of their 19 Premier League outings this term, more than any other team.
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Ahead of Santo's reunion with his erstwhile team on Monday, Wolves coincidentally locked horns with another of the Portuguese's former employers in their last game of 2024, where Vitor Pereira's unbeaten start continued at the home of Ange Postecoglou's Tottenham Hotspur.
Rodrigo Bentancur and Brennan Johnson had ostensibly completed the Spurs turnaround after an early Hwang Hee-chan strike, only for Jorgen Strand Larsen to conjure up a thunderbolt of an equaliser in the 87th minute and ensure that Wolves would enter 2025 outside of the bottom three.
Despite their upturn in results amid the quintessential new manager bounce, Wolves will return to the ignominy of 18th place by Monday evening if Ipswich Town triumph against Fulham; Aston Villa did them a favour on Saturday by seeing off Leicester City.
However, Pereira has already achieved a Wolves feat managed by none of his predecessors since 1977 - going unbeaten in his first three top-flight matches in charge - and not since April have Monday's hosts failed to score in a competitive home fixture, netting multiple goals in four of their last five Molineux matches.
Furthermore, Wolves have not suffered defeat any of their previous five Premier League games against Nottingham Forest, although each of the last four head-to-heads have ended level, including a 1-1 City Ground draw in August where a Jean-Ricner Bellegarde belter stole a point for the Old Gold.
Team News
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Forest's extraordinary run of form this season can be partially attributed to a quiet treatment room, as long-term absentees Danilo (ankle) and Ibrahim Sangare (hamstring) are the visitors' only guaranteed absentees for the showdown with Wolves.
Santo is hopeful of receiving no fewer than three boosts for Monday's trip to Molineux, as Murillo (groin) and Callum Hudson-Odoi (knock) are expected to recover from the issues that rendered them unavailable last time out, while Ryan Yates is back from suspension.
Taking his Premier League goal tally to 11 for the season last time out, Wood is now on the verge of breaking a unique Forest record; one more goal would see him become the club's highest scorer in the competition under one manager, surpassing Stan Collymore's 22 under Frank Clark.
While Forest can call upon their chief attacking threat, the same cannot be said for Wolves, who have lost the influential Matheus Cunha to a two-game ban after the Brazilian admitted an FA charge of misconduct for an incident against Ipswich Town last month.
Cunha joins a plethora of stricken players on the sidelines, including Sasa Kalajdzic (knee), Enso Gonzalez (knee), Yerson Mosquera (knee), Boubacar Traore (knee), Pablo Sarabia (calf) and Toti Gomes (hamstring), while Mario Lemina is nursing a "small injury" but is being heavily linked with a move to Saudi Arabia.
Midfield lynchpin Andre is also touch-and-go after sustaining a knock in the thriller with Tottenham, so Tommy Doyle ought to be on standby, and Cunha's absence will no doubt trigger a return to the first XI for seven-goal Larsen.
Wolverhampton Wanderers possible starting lineup:
Sa; Doherty, Bueno, Dawson; Semedo, Doyle, J. Gomes, Ait-Nouri; Hwang, Guedes; Larsen
Nottingham Forest possible starting lineup:
Sels; Aina, Milenkovic, Murillo, Williams; Yates, Anderson; Elanga, Gibbs-White, Hudson-Odoi; Wood
We say: Wolverhampton Wanderers 1-2 Nottingham Forest
Wolves can always be backed to make the Molineux nets bulge, but they will be deprived of the man who has had a direct hand in almost half of their Premier League goals this season; Cunha has scored 10 and set up four of Wolves' 31 efforts.
In contrast, Forest are showing no signs of floundering and should be strengthened by the returns of no fewer than three key cogs, so Santo should mark his return to his old haunt by haunting the Old Gold and keeping the Tricky Trees on the Premier League podium.
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Ben Knapton
