Manchester United defender Raphael Varane scored a late winner as the hosts survived several scares to claim a 1-0 Premier League win over Wolverhampton Wanderers on Monday with a performance that largely lacked cohesion and attacking threat.
Varane’s header after 76 minutes earned United a scarcely deserved three points as he was picked out in the six-yard box by Aaron Wan-Bissaka’s dinked cross, much to the relief of a nervous home crowd and exasperated manager Erik ten Hag.
Wolves had been painted as a club in disarray over the last week after a fire-sale of top talent and the abrupt exit of Spanish manager Julen Lopetegui, who was replaced five days ago by former Bournemouth boss Gary O’Neil.
But the visitors created the better chances, more than enough to win, and had a late appeal for a penalty turned down by the Video Assistant Referee at Old Trafford.
United’s new goalkeeper Andre Onana clattered into substitute Sasa Kalajdzic in coming for a cross but referee Simon Hooper waved play on and VAR agreed, much to the ire of O’Neil, who got a yellow card for his protests.
“It was a fight, we had to find a way to win and that’s what we did. Wolves are a good team, we knew we would have to play well to get the points,” Ten Hag told Sky Sports.
“We can be much better on the ball, more calm. We gave too many easy giveaways of the ball, especially our front players. But we will improve.”
Teenage Argentine wing Alejandro Garnacho was a major culprit as he saw plenty of the ball but his end product was poor and took the sting out of many of United’s attacks.
Wolves, by contrast, passed the ball around with confidence and opened up the United defence on several occasions although a mixture of poor finishing and some fine stops from Onana kept them scoreless.
Officials penalised
Simon Hooper, Michael Salisbury and Richard West will not officiate Premier League games this weekend for their penalty error following a VAR review in Monday’s game.
Wolves manager O’Neil said the referees’ failure to award a spot-kick had highlighted a grey area in how VAR is used and that referees manager Jon Moss had apologised to him for the error.
Salisbury was also dropped for a round of fixtures in April after Brighton & Hove Albion were denied a penalty in a 2-1 defeat by Tottenham Hotspur.
Reuters
