Two of the strongest starters to the Chinese Super League season go head to head at the Jiangyin Sports Park Stadium on Monday, with Shanghai Shenhua hosting Wuhan.
The hosts have made an unbeaten start to their campaign in a drastic improvement from last season so far, whilst the visitors have also enjoyed an improved opening to the new season despite losing for the first time in midweek.
Match preview
After picking up impressive victories over Guangzhou and Shanghai Port in their opening two fixtures, before holding early league leaders Wuhan Three Towns to a 1-1 draw last weekend, Shanghai Shenhua extended their unbeaten start to the 2022 campaign in midweek.
Jingui Wu's side were expected to take all three points against an inferior opponent in the form of Hebei on Wednesday, but a lacklustre opening 45 minutes looked to put a comfortable win in doubt.
However, Shenhua flew out of the blocks after the interval and took control of the encounter with a quickfire double from Yunding Cao and Chenjie Zhu shortly after the break, before Xinli Peng made sure of the points from the penalty spot midway through the second half.
Monday's hosts head into matchday four in third spot in the Chinese Super League as a result, level on points with the top two following a promising opening few weeks.
After having to compete in the relegation group following the mid-season breakaway back in 2021, it means that Shenhua have made a significant improvement on last season's performance, which coincides with Wu's arrival at the club this summer, and the boss will be hoping his side can keep that momentum going against another strong starter here.
Wuhan's bright opening start, in which Jinyu Li's side won their opening three Super League games on the bounce, suffered its first setback in midweek.
Monday's visitors hosted their city neighbours Wuhan Three Towns on home soil, but after a hugely disappointing display, they fell to a 3-1 defeat to be leapfrogged at the top of the table by their opponents.
Li's men were dominated from start to finish on Wednesday, and could only muster two attempts on goal all game, the second of which arrived in the final few minutes when Felicio Brown Forbes netted a consolation to reduce the deficit from three to two late on.
Like Shenhua, Wuhan's strong start to the 2022 campaign is viewed as a huge improvement on last season's performance so far, after avoiding relegation from the top flight by just one point in the relegation round.
Li's side were the draw specialists last year, drawing 11 and winning just three of their 22 fixtures in the relegation round, which followed eight draws and just a single win in 14 outings in the regular season.
They are yet to draw so far this season, but Wuhan will surely be willing to take a point against a difficult opponent at the Jiangyin Sports Park Stadium on Monday, as they look to extend their strong opening to the current campaign for at least another week.
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Team News
After failing to find the back of the net for the third game running on Wednesday, Jianrong Zhu was withdrawn at half time against Hebei.
The forward was replaced by Ruofan Liu, who helped spark a drastic improvement during the second 45, so the winger is likely to be pushed into the starting 11 on Monday.
Liu will be supported by Christian Bassogog in attack, with support coming from Cao and Peng in the wide areas following their impressive displays in the second half of that win.
As for the visitors, Dong Xu looks to be unavailable on Monday after being forced off just 19 minutes into their midweek defeat because of injury.
Yi Luo is in line to deputise at full-back, as he did on Wednesday, whilst Rentian Hu could also miss out after being withdrawn due to injury for the second game running.
The manager is unlikely to make too many changes as a result of the defeat, with his consistent starting 11 largely performing excellently during an unexpected strong opening to the season so far.
Shanghai Shenhua possible starting lineup:
Ma; Yi, Bi, C Zhu, Bai; Peng, Wang, Wu, Cao; Bassogog, Liu
Wuhan possible starting lineup:
Z Wang; Yuhao, Li, Viana, Luo; J Wang, Jiali, Nie, Liu; Forbes, Kajevic
We say: Shanghai Shenhua 2-1 Wuhan
On paper there looks to be very little between these two sides following their positive starts to the 2022 season, so it is likely to be a tight game on Monday too.
We are predicting Shenhua to edge out their visitors by a narrow margin though, as they look to extend their unbeaten start and inflict a second successive defeat on Wuhan, who they are yet to lose to in six meetings.
For data analysis of the most likely results, scorelines and more for this match please click here.
Top tip
Matthew Tranter
