Bristol City v Wolves: tips, FA Cup fifth-round preview & odds

TV: BT Sport 2, 1pm Sunday

This season's FA Cup has been littered with shock and surprises and this is not the time to believe that order is about to be restored.

The romance of the cup is alive and kicking in 2018-19 thanks to the exploits of Barnet, Wimbledon and Newport among others.

And there may be one or two more upsets yet to unfold, starting with Bristol City toppling Wolves at Ashton Gate.

The fifth-placed team in the Sky Bet Championship ejecting the seventh-best team in the Premier League hardly ranks up there with non-league Sutton beating top-flight Coventry in 1989, but odds of 15-4 about the hosts tell you what the layers reckon is going to happen.

That is an eye-catching price about outsiders who are on a nine-match winning streak, are unbeaten in 15 games since November and are the proud conquerors of five Premier League clubs in cup football over the past 18 months.

Bristol City are a genuine threat to anyone and that hasn’t been fully reflected in the prices.

Wolves are certainly good, and often very good, and their late-goal exploits – they have scored six goals in added time this season – show their never-say-die spirit is unquenchable.

But they were horribly complacent in their two games against Shrewsbury in round four, were sluggish for periods trying to break down Newcastle on Monday and clearly aren’t without fault.

It looks like Nuno is going to stick with accident-prone keeper John Ruddy and will tweak his side further forward to give Raul Jimenez and Diogo Jota much-needed breaks.

The Wolves gaffer will argue that whatever side he sends out can beat anyone and the stats back that up.

This season they have beaten Liverpool in the FA Cup, taken points off Manchester City, Manchester United and Arsenal, and since Christmas they have chalked up 3-1 wins at Tottenham and Everton.

None of that will fluster Johnson, whose side can do no wrong at the moment.

They also like the odd late goal as demonstrated on Tuesday when they extended their remarkable winning run thanks to Famara Diedhiou’s added-time penalty against QPR.

The big Senegalese frontman is a real handful in the Championship and will be to Wolves if the service is good. City pride themselves on the excellence of their set-plays.

Only Middlesbrough have scored fewer home goals in the Championship’s top half than the Robins, and even though this is a fixture littered with goals – there have been 18 in the last four meetings – this might not be one of those.

With no replays in this round, this may prove to be a tense occasion.

Recommendation
Bristol City
1pt 15-4 bet365

Bet on this game at Soccerbase.com

Team news
Bristol City
Andreas Weimann is a doubt with a back problem.

Wolves
Diogo Jota (knock) is a doubt.

Key stat
The last four Championship games between these sides over the past two seasons produced 18 goals.

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