How Wolves drew 1-1 with Manchester United at the Molineux

Manchester United had travelled to the Molineux Stadium on Monday to face Wolves, hoping to build on their winning start to this Premier League campaign.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side made a bright start to the game and opened the scoring in the 27th minute through Anthony Martial, who scored with a powerful finish from a tight angle.

However, the home team came up with a response in the second half through Ruben Neves’ fantastic long-range strike in the 55th minute.

Paul Pogba earned a penalty and had the chance to win it for the visitors, but his spot-kick was saved by Rui Patricio. In the end, Solskjaer’s Manchester United had to settle with a point as the game finished 1-1 at the Molineux.

The build-up to the game

Manchester United headed into Monday night’s game on the back of a fantastic 4-0 victory over Chelsea. Goals from Marcus Rashford, Anthony Martial and Daniel James gave United a perfect start to the season.

Wolves, meanwhile, booked a place in the Europa League play-off after enjoying a thumping 8-0 aggregate victory over Armenian club FC Pyunik.

Tactical Analysis

Solskjaer dropped Andreas Pereira in favour of Daniel James for the only change he made to the starting lineup against Chelsea, fielding his team in a 4-2-3-1 formation. Wolves remained unchanged from their 0-0 draw with Leicester City, as Nuno Espirito Santo stuck to his usual 3-5-2 formation.

United started the game on the front foot and dominated possession straightaway. Wolves were happy to sit back, defend and wait for the counter-attack.

They defended in a low block with minimal space to work in the midfield as their midfielders Ruben Neves, Joao Moutinho and Leander Dendoncker harried and hassled the United players into relinquishing possession.

As the game progressed and United began to control more of the ball, Wolves’ organised defence means it became difficult for the visitors to find any spaces to exploit. Nuno’s side were quite disciplined and well-drilled, clearing anything that came in and around the box.

Wolves’ deep block defence and intense press in the defensive third posed problems for United’s centrally-oriented attacking play. As a result, the visitors struggled to quickly switch play and execute their plans down the wide areas.

Despite Solskjaer’s men dominating possession, they couldn’t create chances to play centrally and even when they did on a few occasions, it was dealt with by the Wolves defenders.

As it happened

Wolves’ plan, however, was disrupted in the 27th minute when Martial fired home the opener after a Luke Shaw run distracted Coady and pulled him away to open up space for the Frenchman, who made no mistake and scored from inside the box with a left-footed shot.

United were utterly dominant and were unlucky not to double their lead before heading into half-time.

Matt Doherty came off at half time after picking up an injury and was replaced by Adama Traore. It was a forced substitution for Wolves but one that worked wonders.

Wolves came out all guns blazing in the second half, as expected, with Traore isolating Shaw and getting past him on a number of occasions with ease.

Nuno’s men started asking questions to United’s backline as Raul Jimenez and Diogo Jota – the duo that rarely got any service from its teammates to thrive, became lively. And it was Traore who won the free-kick for Jimenez’s header that struck the post and was later cleared away for a corner.

From the resulting corner, Wolves equalised through Neves. Moutinho supplied a low cross towards the edge of the box to Neves, who controlled the ball and sorted out of his feet before rifling a shot to the top corner of the net, giving David de Gea absolutely no chance to save.

Solskjaer’s side were rattled after the equaliser and they had only themselves to blame. Before Neves’ goal, United had the chance to go 2-0 up when Wan-Bissaka played a simple pass to Lingard in the opposition box. But the 27-year-old failed to control the ball.

The visitors, however, responded well. Wolves had to deal with spells of wide play from United, who looked to increase the number of bodies inside the penalty area and thus prioritised attacking with crosses into the box.

And for all the possession they dominated after the equaliser, Paul Pogba, dancing his way past a couple of Wolves players and into the box, won a penalty after a foul from Conor Coady.

There was a brief discussion between Rashford and Pogba regarding the spot-kick before the latter took the responsibility. But Pogba’s penalty was kept out excellently by Rui Patricio as it was at a nice height to be saved.

What followed later wasn’t anything significant as the game ended 1-1 at Molineux.