The latest match in the opening round of the Premier League between MU vs Wolves ended with a minimal victory in favor of the home team with a goal in the last minutes of the game by central defender Raphael Varane.
Goal
MU: Varane (76′)
Right before the new season, coach Julen Lopetegui decided to leave Wolves due to disagreements with the BLD team when there were no quality contracts. After parting with Lopetegui, Wolves appointed Gary O’Neil, the strategist who was sacked by Bournemouth after the 2022/23 season despite helping the team to successfully relegate. The short time getting acquainted with Gary O’Neil’s team made Wolves not highly appreciated before the encounter with MU at Old Trafford.
With MU, coach Erik ten Hag only had one change compared to the victory in the friendly match against Lens, when Wan-Bissaka replaced Diogo Dalot. Blockbuster Ramus Hojlund is injured, so Marcus Rashford continues to be a striker and is supported by satellites Antony, Alejandro Garnacho.
Despite having the home-field advantage and the strongest squad, it was quite surprising that MU entered the match inferior to Wolves. In the first 10 minutes, Wolves played high pressing, making the host MU confused in the implementation of the game. However, a delicious opportunity came to MU in the 11th minute, when Rashford had the opportunity to face goalkeeper Jose Sa but could not take advantage of it.
This is also considered MU’s best opportunity in the first 45 minutes because the rest of the time they played very stalemate against Wolves’ well-organized defense. With the away team, in the second half of the first half, they also created some good chances but Matheus Cunha and Pablo Sarabia both missed to force the two teams to leave the field with a goalless draw.
Entering the second half, when the MU defense was not stable, Wolves almost had a goal in the 49th minute, but Cunha’s very quick shot went wide of the post. In the 55th minute, Cunha had another bold situation to break through the middle and did not encounter any drastic obstacles, but the shot later failed to beat Onana.
Underperformed the opponent, but MU suddenly got a goal at an important moment of the match. In the 76th minute, Bruno Fernandes had a favorable pass for Aaron Wan-Bissaka to come up and make an accurate touch into the penalty area for Varane to bounce high and hit goalkeeper Jose Sa to open the scoring.
The last minutes of the game saw Wolves’ strong rise and it seemed that they would get an equalizer after goalkeeper Onana collided with Sasa Kalajdzic in the penalty area in the 7th minute of injury time.
After checking VAR, the referee team decided not to award a penalty to the away team. Coach Gary O’Neil told Sky Sports after the game: “I think it was a foul. If you go with the ball and hit the opponent too hard it has to be a foul.”
In the face of that controversial situation, Onana practically made an excellent Premier League debut. The visitors Wolves made 23 shots, but either lacked accuracy or could not beat Onana. According to Fantasy’s statistics, Onana had 6 accurate saves from the visitors’ attacks.
Squad
MU: Onana; One-Bissaka, Varane, Martinez (Lindelof 46′), Shaw; Casemiro, Fernandes, Mount (Eriksen 68′), Antony (Pellistri 77′), Garnacho (Sancho 68′), Rashford (McTominay 87′).
Wolves: Jose Sa; Semedo, Kilman, Dawson, Ait-Nouri (Well 78′); Nunes, Lemina, Gomes; Sarabia (Hwang 62′), Cunha (Fabio Silva 77′), Neto.
