Wolverhampton Wanderers handed Manchester United their third straight defeat on Boxing Day with a comfortable 2-0 win at Molineux.
Matheus Cunha danced between thick clouds of fog, breaking the deadlock inside the opening hour directly from a corner before Hwang Hee-chana headed in for a second to seal the match. The game was goalless – and without struggle – for the first 47 minutes before a red card for Bruno Fernandes changed the contest irrevocably.
Three well-deserved points for Vitor Pereira’s new side move them up to a relatively safe 17th place, while United are just three places higher in 14th.
How the match unfolded
The only notable incident from the first half that was fortunately obscured by large clouds of fog was the yellow card for Bruno Fernandes. The lively Manchester United captain brought down Matheus Cunha at the end of a crazy run. This seemingly innocuous offense would bring together the two protagonists of the game, who will remember Thursday’s game for dramatically different reasons.
Fernandes immediately received his second yellow card of the game – and then his third red of the season – for an unnecessary tackle on Nelson Semedo less than two minutes after the restart.
With an unusual United reduced to ten men, what had been a tight and nervous contest turned into attack against defense as Wolves poured into the void created by Fernandes’ dismissal.
However, it took a moment of magic from Molineux’s resident wizard to finally fire the hosts in front. For the second time in seven days, United conceded directly from a corner – taking their disastrous dead-ball reputation to new depths – while Cunha swung a menacing shot through the fog into Andre Onana’s net just before the hour mark.
Wolves collected attacks on possession of the ball, constantly finding a reserve player, but could not translate their numerical superiority into a result. Once that clock ticked down to the last ten minutes – before the fourth official added another eight – and it was only 1-0, United began to prey on the nerves of Wolves who had been shredded by a season of conflict.
Hwang settled the tension late on with a decisive second deep into stoppage time. Cunha – who else? – he ran into the empty United half and unselfishly squared for his teammate.
Check out the player ratings for Wolves v Man Utd here.
In an interview with The Athletic back in 2022 Fernandes warned: “I play against Wolves and there are many Portuguese players [in their squad]but if i have to kick them, i’ll kick them. If I have to whine at them, I will.” Fernandes can be accused of many things, but at least he is a man of his word.
Continuing on a straight red card during the humbling defeat to Tottenham Hotspur in September – which was eventually overturned – and a double booking against Porto four days later, Fernandes completed a hat-trick of dismissals by kicking Cunha and Semedo.
The United captain became the first Manchester United player to be sent off three times in the same season in all competitions since Nemanja Vidić during the 2008/09 season. While the legendary centre-back could blame an in-form Fernando Torres for his woes, Fernandes’ grumpiness was often to blame.
Ahead of the trip to Molineux, Ruben Amorim warned that his Portuguese compatriot Vitor Pereira “is a very good coach who will understand us”. That very much turned out to be the case the new boss of Vukov he neutralized the visitors by aligning United’s 3-4-2-1 formation.
In the battle of the last three, the game practically broke down into a battle of individual duels. Each attacking trident faced a trio of centre-backs, a pair of double midfield pivots facing each other in the central circle, while it was wing-back against wing-back.
Amorim, to his credit, tried to change the balance of a largely tricky contest as Noussair Mazraoui burst into the box from the right wing, adding an extra body to the four-man midfield scrap. While that greased the wheels of United’s build-up, it didn’t lead to any significant looks at goal.
On the contrary, the exclusion of Fernandes in the 47th minute proved to be more decisive. Wolves had the ball in the United net within two minutes of the playmaker’s red card, overloading the right flank when Nelson Semedo played the ball into Jorgen Strand Larsen’s backcourt.
The hosts had to wait until the 99th minute before they finally managed to achieve numerical superiority, but the red card gave them a sense of control over the proceedings that did not exist in the even first half.
Just 20 minutes before the start of the evening offer of the Boxing Day promotion, The Telegraph published a report claiming Arsenal were heavily interested in a move for Wolves’ talismanic striker Matheus Cunha.
The Gunners were not attracted by another impressive display from the Brazilian on Thursday, or even his overall campaign, but they are eyeing Cunha as an immediate replacement for injured Bukayo Saka after three years of consistently encouraging production. Many in the Premier League and beyond probably share Arsenal’s high opinion of the 25-year-old.
A menace who squirmed wherever he took the ball, Cunha looks distinctly out of place in a team battling relegation. Apart from his superb set piece which eventually ended the match, Cunha seemed to draw a collective gasp of awe from the Molineux crowd every time he touched the ball, committed a foul or flashed an angry smile. Those Wolves fans may not get another chance to drool over the Brazilian star while he’s still draped in gold.
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