Wolves vs Nottingham Forest Prediction and Betting Tips: Semedo a nice price to be cautioned

One of Saturday's four Premier League 3pm kick-offs sees Wolves take on an under-fire Nottingham Forest at Molineux.

Wolves' close 1-0 win over bottom three residents Burnley provided back-to-back victories at Molineux for Gary O'Neill's side, who are now unbeaten in five on their own turf. Nottingham Forest were handed a real pasting away to Fulham as Steve Cooper's men fell victims to a 5-0 scoreline, causing bookmakers to open up the Next Nottingham Forest Manager Odds market as a result of pressure from Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis.

The match odds are being fairly kind to Wanderers, who are a best price of 9/10 to secure three points on home soil. Cooper's Tricky Trees aren't well fancied at 7/2 to win behind enemy lines, while the draw represents a 27/10 chance.

Much like Saturday's visitors, Wolves' home record is proving their real strong suit under Gary O'Neill, as it did for previous managers before him since their return to the Premier League. The boys in gold have dazzled in big matches at home, swatting aside Manchester City and Tottenham and going unbeaten in their last five here, which includes draws with Aston Villa and Newcastle thrown in for good measure.

The turgid away record Forest displayed in their first season back in the top flight appeared to be improving with positive displays against Arsenal and United, plus an historic victory at Stamford Bridge, however, things have dropped off a cliff since. Cooper has now lost three of the subsequent four matches on the road, picking up just a single point and scoring only two goals since 2nd September.

When pairing the match result with a Matheus Cunha shot on target, we take our odds up to 9/4, with BetMGM the standout price for this double. Only six players in the entire division have successfully had more shots on target than Cunha's 16 for Wolves. Not only have over half of the Brazilian's efforts tested the goalkeeper or rippled the back of the net, but he's also cleared this line in 10 of his 15 2023/24 PL outings.

If Steve Cooper is to pick him and his team out of their current rut, he'll be sure to thrust Morgan Gibbs-White back into the starting XI, the Forest player to have accrued the most minutes (1237) and one of only two to have featured in all 15 of their Premier League matches thus far. MGW has drawn 23 fouls across his appearances, committing opposition players to commit 2+ in 9/15, and standing tall as his club's most dominant player in this metric by a gap of almost 10.

Facing him will be Wolves' Nelson Semedo, who has given away the second-most fouls of any player taking to the field on Saturday with 23 - only three behind leader Joao Gomes. Semedo, who's shown real attacking flair under Gary O'Neill this term, has given away two or more fouls in half of his PL matches this season, picking up four yellow cards for his troubles; two of which have come at Molineux. Furthermore, the Portuguese right-back has completed 22 tackles, second to only midfielder Mario Lemina, which is a clearly display of his enjoyment in the nitty gritty duties of being a defender.

O'Neill's men are the second-least disciplined club behind Chelsea this season, racking up 44 bookings and three red cards in just less than half of the campaign. Additionally, at least one Wolves defender has been cautioned in six of their last eight outings, and that could increase with PL newbie Samuel Barrott in charge of proceedings. This marks the 30-year-old's sixth top-flight game, most recently reffing Arsenal's 4-3 victory over Luton, where he served up three yellows. Across the ref's 16 2023/24 fixtures to date, he has handed out 58 bookings, which is an average of 3.62 yellows per game.