League leaders Arsenal host bottom-of-the-table Wolverhampton Wolves on Sunday with an eye on bouncing right back after their last-minute loss to Aston Villa last Saturday. They come into the match after having maintained their perfect UEFA Champions League record with a 3-0 hammering of Club Brugge and will be supremely confident facing a Wolves side that got rocked 4-1 at home by Manchester United on Monday.
Here's all you need to know about the match:
How to watch Arsenal vs. Wolves
The match will be telecast on TNT Sports in the U.K., with kickoff at 8 p.m. BST at the Emirates stadium in London.
NBC will telecast the match in the U.S., JioStar in India and Stan Sport in Australia. You can also follow ESPN's live updates.
Arsenal's golden chance to win back Prem momentum
Arsenal's last five Premier League game record reads (latest first): loss, win, draw, win, draw. This may not sound like it's bad, but Manchester City have four wins in their last five Prem games and that's left them just two points behind Arsenal after 15 games. With City facing a tough away trip to high-flying Crystal Palace on Sunday, the late Saturday kickoff against the Prem's worst team gives Arsenal a golden chance to bounce right back and open the gap to five before City kickoff.
The defeat at Villa was a heartbreaker, but their mid-week match already showed that the blip was temporary, and if they get a comfortable win here, it that sets them up nicely for the festive run-in: a period where they need to ensure they maintain a gap over hard-chasing City, and the rest.
Ahead of the match, almost every stat reads in their favour. But sample these two just to see how heavily stacked the odds are against Wolves:
Arsenal have won all their last 8 Prem games against Wolves. Only against Burnley (10) do they have a longer winning run.
Arsenal have scored at least one goal in each of their last 35 meetings with Wolves (all competitions), since a 1-0 home loss in February 1979.
Wolves are in real danger of breaking the Derby County record
Derby in 2007/08: 38 G, 1W 8D 29L (20 goals scored, 89 conceded)
Wolves in 2025: 15G, 0W 2D 13L (8 scored, 33 conceded)
As the partial boycott at the Molineux on Monday suggested, Wolves fans can see where this is going and it's nowhere pretty. In fact, only QPR in 2012-13 (16) and Sheffield United in 2020-21 (17) have had to wait longer for a win in a Prem-era campaign.
Against Manchester United, they appeared to have finally clawed their way into a Premier League game this season in the moments just before they equalised late in the first half; but once again they were too easily cut open in the second. At the other end, a United side that has struggled to keep teams at bay since Ruben Amorim took charge had a rare comfortable outing in that last 45, and that speaks volumes.
Right now, Wolves aren't showing any signs that they can accumulate at least nine more points over the course of the season.
Arteta can tinker to find best combination and manage squad
With injuries playing havoc with Arsenal's squad, first with their forwards and now with their defenders, Mikel Arteta will appreciate a fixture in which he can manage the squad or tinker with his formation and combinations, if need be. After all, it's top vs. bottom and on paper, there's only one winner.
If Arteta feels more of his squad can use minutes (like a Christian Norgaard in defensive midfield or Ethan Nwaneri in a more attacking role) or if he wants to tweak the combination a bit (like playing Eberechi Eze in the Martin Odegaard role instead of the #10) or if he wants to give a proper run out to players just returning from injury (like Gabriel Jesus, who impressed in his cameo in the mid-week), this is simply the best fixture to do it in.
The Bukayo Saka vs Noni Madueke sub-plot
Arteta has the kind of headache now that most managers crave for: play one of the best players in the league, or play an exciting talent who's coming off a stunning display in the Champions League? He can, of course, opt to field both Bukayo Saka and Noni Madueke -- with one being pushed out of position to the left -- but Arteta will appreciate that he can play either on the right wing and not see a dip in quality.
Saka is the star's talisman and their joint top-scorer in the league (four, tied with three others) and he'll likely start this one, but Madueke has four goals in two Prem starts against Wolves, including a hattrick last season with Chelsea. It's exactly the kind of squad depth Arteta has craved over the years as he saw others, especially former side Manchester City, use that quality to great effect during increasingly strenuous campaigns. Now, it's up to him to show he can manage his resources well and use them to keep up a sustained run to the business end of the season.
Can Wolves finally match their xG figures?
It's not all doom and gloom for Wolves fans, though. According to Opta's expected points model, Wolves should be on 15 points right now and in 18th place on the table. If you're wondering why, it's because they've only scored eight from 13.2 expected goals (xG) and conceded 33 from 23.5 xG against.
The transfers out this summer have had a major impact, of course, but the point remains that they are simply not finishing well enough, and they are making mistakes at the back. Jorgen Strand-Larsen, Wolves' best chances for goals, needs to regain the confidence in front of goal that saw him bag 14 goals last season while Jhon Arias, Matheus Cunha's replacement, needs to start taking on more of the offensive responsibility now that he's half-a-season in. It won't be easy to do this when facing the league's best defence, but if they can manage to squeeze a result out of the unlikeliest of circumstances, it could be the platform for Wolves to launch a(n) (unlikely) survival attempt.
Rob Edwards has previous in making things uncomfortable for Arteta -- remember the thrilling Edwards-managed-Luton 3-4 Arsenal match in December 2023? -- and he'll be hoping for a similar performance (sans the 97th minute winner) from his beleaguered Wolves side.