Wolves 0-1 Man Utd - goal analysis

By Kieren Hassan, published on 30/08/21

{Credit for all in game footage: Manchester United}

Manchester United fans have had a rollercoaster the last few days which has seen one of their icons of most recent times, Cristiano Ronaldo look like he was about to sign for United’s rivals, Manchester City. Through intervention of Sir Alex Ferguson, Solskjaer, Ed Woodward, Rio Ferdinand & Patrice Evra Manchester United were able to quickly make a move for the five time Ballon D’or winner. Between Thursday lunch & Friday evening Ronaldo had almost ended up at City, before quickly turning them down once United let their interest be known. Ronaldo will be welcomed home with open arms by the Old Trafford faithful as we all look in awe about how Ronaldo will improve & push this youthful United team onto silverware, before then Manchester United travelled to the Molineux to face Wolverhampton Wanderers & an early international break.

Manchester United went into Sunday in a very rollercoaster like form with a very high win over Leeds United, before a draw with Southampton in which saw a lot of fans unhappy with the performance of the team given Southampton had heavily weakened their squad. Wolves however had departed with their Manager from last season as he went to Tottenham Hotspur, to not be replaced by Bruno Lage. Solskjaer set his side up with both Raphael Varane & Jadon Sancho making their first starts for the club looking to impress. Lage however had his side set up to attack United through Adama Traore & Francisco Trincao who were causing United problems early on as United were trying to find their feet. Wolves dominated most of the first half being very unlucky not to be going in at half time with the lead.

Trincao gets a shot off in the box here in which AWB makes a darting run & perfectly stretches himself out to block the shot that had beat David De Gea, keeping United from going down, something that hasn’t been talked about is a tackle by Daniel James here after the block that probably should’ve been a penalty but was somehow missed by the officials & VAR.

Here Wolves from a set piece had a header from Trincao be saved from close range to David De Gea, it bounces out back to Trincao who tries to put it past the Goalkeeper who’s “Wall of De Gea” reactionary saves showed us a glimpse of Prime De Gea to deny Trincao from 5 yards out, for me save of the season thus far. De Gea and the defence were the true positives performance wise during Sunday’s game, with the midfield & attack sometimes lacking understanding & causing themselves issues.

Wolverhampton Wanderers 0 - 1 Manchester United

A 50/50 tackle between Pogba & Neves ends up with Neves taking a tumble a few steps after the initial tackle (orange circle), Pogba plays it to Raphael Varane who with the game ticking on into the 80th minute was looking to help United by passing it out wide to Mason Greenwood (black line) to open up Wolves for a bit of a snatch & grab by United. Greenwood has a fair bit of space (red circle) as Wolves have kept themselves compact & solid defensively.

Greenwood turns with the ball & starts to look for the open space he can drive into (red circle), only Marcal (orange circle) between himself & a chance at goal. Cavani & Bruno Fernandes driving into the box to give options, this means that the Wolves back three have to try to cover two dangerous men in the box, so none of them can help Marcal as he’s caught one on one with United’s lethal youngster.

Now here we see when Marcal & Greenwood actually meet to be close enough to each other to affect the space, the issue for Marcal here is that Greenwood is just entering the area, Marcal would be taking a risk to challenge Greenwood so can only push him wide. Greenwood's intent is still to go into the area (red circle/oval) but Marcel needs to try & push him along the 18 yard line & out of danger.

Marcal has let Greenwood come slightly inside, which normally isn’t as big of an issue but we’ve seen Mason Greenwood finish from these types of positions plenty of times, even showing Greenwood a small area of the goal is an issue for opposition teams. Greenwood gets a shot off & I would assume he’s aiming for the far corner (Black line) as the Goalkeeper is covering the near post.

Greenwoods shot isn’t exactly as he’d have liked, but it does work out massively well for himself & Manchester United with them getting some luck as Wolves Goalkeeper José Sá not quite having the reactions of De Gea to get a proper part of his body to the ball & instead only getting a deflection which takes the ball into the ground & ultimately into the net giving United a late, undeserved lead.

This game was scrappy, United needed to hold on & a lot of luck to get through it unscathed. Together with AWB’s block, David De Gea’s saves & Raphael Varane showing early signs that he is a Manchester United player through & through (not that anyone should ever question it), United had seen themselves get some luck. The Neves/Pogba incident could’ve been given either way, I personally don’t feel it’s a foul, though surprise surprise Graeme Souness thinks it’s a leg breaker & a career ender, as if his highlight reels aren't him literally throwing punches & going studs up into players thighs, ankles & knees. A very tough one to take for Wolves who deserved something from the game, but Adama Troare has the stat for having the most shots this season without a goal & Wolves are yet to register a goal in the league.

The International break has probably done United some good here after three games including two poor performances coming out with 7 points in the table giving them a bit more time to get Scott Mctominay recovering as well as bringing in United Icon Cristiano Ronaldo back in a United shirt. Newcastle will come to Old Trafford with the crowd & players up for it with Cristiano in the squad, hopefully he can carry on where he left off with United fighting for & hopefully winning silverware.