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 night.
It was, however, a performance that largely lacked cohesion and attacking threat by the hosts.
Varane’s header after 76 minutes earned Manchester United a scarcely deserved three points.
This was after 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.
This was 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.
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But it was the visitors who created the better chances, more than enough to win, and had a late appeal for a penalty turned down by the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) 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.
Ten Hag said: “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.
“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 winger, 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 Manchester United defence on several occasions.
A mixture of poor finishing and some fine stops from Onana kept them scoreless.
Varane, however, made up for his earlier miss to score and United were able to just about hang on until the end.
