26 December 2024
Wolves 2 Man Utd 0
Vitor Pereira made a winning start to life as Wolves manager. His second game in charge saw his side welcome a misfiring Man Utd to Molineux. It had not been a bed of roses for Ruben Amorim since his arrival at Old Trafford. He was hoping to get his side back to winning ways to improve upon their dire position in the league table.
The big news from the teams was that the Red Devils’ manager excluded Marcus Rashford from the matchday squad once again. He has been discarded like an out of date free school dinner. A lot of the players in the squad had plenty to prove to their new boss, a clean slate for all of them, not that they seemed to be utilising this so far.
Cunha immediately started to cause problems for the visitors. Incredibly, with seven United players around him, they could do nothing to dispossess him and Fernandes sent the player crashing to the floor. The referee was not messing around and brandished a yellow card to the Man Utd skipper, laying a marker down for the rest of the match.
It was a game of very few chances in the early stages, the visitors were dominating possession but doing nothing with it. Finally someone decided to make the keeper earn his keep as Dalot looked to bend one in the top corner from outside the box. It was a good effort but Jose Sa had it covered and made a flying save for the cameras.
Wolves’ Brazilian playmaker was dictating play for the hosts. His searching pass picked out Semedo who crossed into Strand Larsen. He rose above the defender to head down into the ground, with the ball bouncing towards the top corner. Onana was on his toes and scrambled across his goal to tip it wide. The effort needed more pace on it to really trouble the keeper.
It was not a match for the football purists with very little to write home about in the first-half. It was unlikely to make the cut for end of season DVDs for either club. Now it was over to the new managers to inspire their teams to take it up a gear or three. Maximum points were a must for both sides, anything less would be seen as a missed opportunity.
Minutes after the restart, Fernandes lunged in on a challenge with Semedo. The player went down and the referee had no option but to show the Portuguese midfielder a second yellow card. The Red Devils’ skipper was making a bit of a name for himself this season for being sent off and he had left his team up against it, down to ten men for the majority of the second-half.
The hosts almost punished them immediately as Semedo swung in an inviting cross for Strand Larsen to head home. Celebrations were muted as the assistant raised their flag to rule it out for offside. It was a very tight decision but the VAR studio stuck by the referees decision. However, Pereira’s side seemed to grow in confidence from the incident.
Cunha then took a corner kick and his cross went straight into the far corner of the goal. Onana was complaining that he was fouled as he tried to get it but the referee was not having any of it. Looking at the replay it was just poor goalkeeping, something we are starting to get accustomed to with the calamitous keeper since his arrival.
Amorim made a host of changes to try and change the tempo from his team. It was one of these subs that tried a speculative shot from the edge of the box but Antony dragged his effort wide of the target and into the side netting. That was the closest the visitors had come to ruffling the back of the Wolves net all evening.
Often the camera pans onto the Man Utd manager on the touchline and he looks like a man who has won a free cruise……..on the Titanic. No doubt he knew the size of the task before putting pen to paper but you have to wonder whether he had given these players a lot more credit than they deserve. After all, they were being played off the park by a side in the bottom three.
Deep into added time Antony swung a cross in and picked out Maguire with a completely free header. With all the time in the world, he headed it straight at Jose Sa. It had been a quiet day for the Wolves keeper and he was probably just pleased to be involved in the action. The visitors had created very little in the final third.
As Man Utd threw players forward, the hosts won it back and Doyle played a sublime pass forward for Cunha. It was two on one as they raced towards the Man Utd goal. The Brazilian laid it on a plate for Hwang to smash it into the top corner to seal back-to-back victories for their new manager. It is a crazy turnaround of form from their showing so far this campaign.
The hosts moved out of the bottom three with victory, sending fans home with a feel-good factor, something which has been rare this season. Man Utd languish 14th in the table, it was not a good time for Manchester clubs at all. The visitors cannot feel hard done by, Wolves were good value for their victory, they were by far the better team.
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