English giant, Manchester United, have started the new year with a defeat in the English Premier League. Last night, they lost to Wolverhampton Wanderers at Old Trafford. It is the first defeat for the Red Devils under the new manager, Ralf Rangnick. They are now standing in 7th place on the point table with 31 points. Meanwhile, the Wolves got closer to the Red Devils after the victory.
Match Report
Manchester United welcomed Wolverhampton Wanderers at the Theatre of Dreams, Old Trafford. In this match, the home team manager Ralf Rangnick made a few changes in the starting XI. As the captain of Man United, Harry Maguire, was injured, Cristiano Ronaldo got the arm belt of the captaincy.
Moreover, Ralf has played Phil Jones at the center-back with Raphael Varane. With this match, Phil Jones has returned to the playing XI after a long day. He didn’t play a single game for almost two years due to the injury. It was a bit surprising that the manager did not play Bruno Fernandez from the start of the game. He was on the bench against the Wolves.
On the other side, the Wolverhampton manager set up his team formation with 3-4-3. He used Fernando Marcal and Nelson Semedo as the two wing-backs. In the front, the manager played Raul Jimenez alongside Trincao and Podence.
However, the home team could not play attacking football on their home ground. On the other hand, Wolverhampton played very aggressively from the beginning of the match. They dominated in the first 15 minutes. In the first half, the visitors got four corner kicks, where the home team got zero.
The first half ended in a 0-0 draw as both teams could not score. Coming back from the break, Manchester United were pushing for the goal. But like the first half, they were not playing as a team. The visitors took this opportunity. They took 19 shots in the match. Because of David De Gea, Wolverhampton didn’t find the net. But they finally scored at the very last moment. Midfielder Joao Moutinho scored in the 82nd minute for the Wolves. As a result, Wolverhampton Wanderers beat Manchester United at Old Trafford.
Reaction
Manchester United manager Ralf Rangnick feels to improve his team. Talking to the media, he said,
The game showed we still have a lot of work to do and still have to take quite a few steps, both collectively and individually, especially against the ball, but in the first half in particular, in possession of the ball, there were too many unforced errors, too many giveaways. In those parts of the game, we just have to get better. I don’t want to speak about the individual performances of players, it is an issue of the whole team. We can only improve the team if we get better collectively. It doesn’t make sense now to talk about individual performances.