Manchester United extended their unbeaten away run to 28 matches after a 1-0 victory against Wolverhampton Wanderers in the English Premier League. Wolves created a lot of chances in the game but didn’t take any, mainly thanks to David De Gea who made some incredible saves to lead United to victory.
Wolves had an XG rate of 2.33 but most of their shots lacked a finishing touch. United were able to grab hold of the ball after some pressure in the first 15 minutes of the game. The Wolves players were dominant in winning duels in almost every department except for loose ball duels where United were able to take advantage. The recoveries in the opposition half was high and that created some extra pressure during the match.
Paul Pogba has been ever-present in the United midfield this season. The Frenchman attempted the most number of passes into the final third of the opposition with 19 and that was twice more than 2nd ranked Ruben Neves who attempted 9 passes.
Fred had a bad outing and lost a lot of defensive duels but the Brazilian recovered 8 balls in the opposition half.
15 through balls were attempted by United players to beat Wolves’ defence. Mason Greenwood’s strike in the 79th minute was the biggest turning point of the game. The youngster is on a dream run and has scored in every game this season.
Wolves created constant pressure from the start of the match with 9 shots alone in the first half. The home team tried scoring 15 times but De Gea saved all the 6 shots on target – which also included a double save from Roman Saiss’ effort in the 69th minute of the match.
Manchester United started with a 4-2-3-1 formation with Sancho and Varane starting for the first time. From the average position of starting xi, we see that United were pushing from the left side with Luke Shaw mostly playing in the opposition half. Fred played a defensive role in the centre and Pogba was a little higher. Sancho was not playing that wide and was allowing Shaw to make the runs. Bruno was a lot closer to Sancho and Greenwood was also drifting towards the right side. Later on, Cavani replaced James and Martial replaced Sancho. Martial played much wider than Sancho and Cavani played more of a central role.
Great saves and a little edge in some departments earned a hard-fought victory for Manchester United against Wolves.
