Manchester United v Wolves 3rd Jan 2022: Match thread
By Ivybridge Wolf January 3 2022
This afternoon, at 5.30pm, Wolves play Manchester United at Old Trafford which will be our first moment of Wolves supporting football since the hard-fought draw v Chelsea at Molineux on 19th December. Not a happy hunting ground for us, Old Trafford, and the stats show our last win there was 9th February 1980 .…. 42 years ago. For the record we won 1-0, the scorer, Mel Eves (who my Nan always told me lived down the road in Rough Hills). My only visit as an away fan was to witness the ill-fated Mick McCarthy B team defeat of 2009, say no more! The last contest, at Molineux, ended in a 1-0 home defeat, a harsh August loss in a competitive match which saw Wolves in attacking mode without being able to show a cutting edge. One of the three disappointing early and perhaps undeserved setbacks ….. though establishing the tone for our finishing shortfalls.
Manchester United have had an upturn in fortune of late, but will it be enough to pierce the resilient Wolves defence? They too had two matches called off in December due to COVID, though ended up with a record for the month of P5 W4 D1 L0, not bad really. They are currently 6 points ahead of us in the league, both after 18 matches …. So possibly a bit of a 6 pointer, though the bookies make them strong favourites.
As eluded, Manchester United will have top work hard to beat our defence, this is our clear strength having only conceded 14 goals (only bettered by Manchester City) and the news that Saiss has permission to play is extremely positive, this prior to his international call up to the African Nations Cup. I never thought I’d say this, but we’ll really miss Saiss. His part in our solid back 3 cannot be underestimated.
Wolves’ problem remains at the other end. Whilst we are second in the league for goals conceded, we are second last in the league for goals scored …. Only Norwich have scored fewer. Apparently, it’s our lowest top-flight total at the turn of the year since 1981-82. Frankly, we desperately need something new in January, my best guess is an attack minded midfielder who can put in a tackle and carry the ball forward. In the meantime, I suspect that this afternoon will resemble previous similar matches of considerable periods of rear-guard action with (hopefully) some smash and grab moments on the counterattack. Could we achieve that elusive Old Trafford win? Everything crossed folks! Will Traore play? Hope so.
Some more encouraging facts:
Wolves have not won their first game of the calendar year in any of their seven previous Premier League campaigns (D2, L5), our last top-flight win was in 1981 v Middlesbrough. Promising!
We have won just 4/16 Premier League matches played on Mondays (D4, L8). Conversely Manchester United have lost just 1/17 on a Monday. Hopeful!
Traore and Trincao have made 21 shots without scoring in this season, the joint-highest figure in the division so far. Fantastic!
Got to laugh at the stats and portents! With all the good omens, only one result seems likely ….. a Wolves win, naturally!! Stats, records and trends are there to be broken after all, and our defence is as good as any in the league.
As for the team selection ….. I always say it’ll be interesting, though Bruno has reported that there are no additional COVID positive players, and hopefully this period off has allowed those who were positive to recover so that all who are otherwise fit are available to play.
Enjoy the match, it’s on Sky Sports, as always please feel free to share your thoughts and comments with us on this thread.
And finally, to all who read and contribute to The Molineux Way, may we wish you all a very Happy and prosperous New Year!! Very best wishes for 2022.
UTW!!
Manchester United v Wolves 3rd Jan 2022: Match thread
Posted by: Wolves (IP Logged)
Date: 03/01/2022 13:55
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Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2022:01:23:12:12:34 by Ivybridge Wolf.
Again, Bruno shows a general lack of faith in Traore, Trincao gets the nod. Hoever played well the last match, so interesting Semedo is picked ahead. Can’t say there are really any massive surprises in the team today.
Phil Jones playing …. That’s probably the pre-match selection headline. Hasn’t played since the ice age.
Tough match tonight and we will have to be on top of our game to squeeze anything out of it.
But fingers crossed and let’s hope that the team clicks, especially moving forward.
Evening All It seems to me linking of Varane and Jones in the Utd defence gives us our best chance of scoring. The fact that Adama once again starts on the bench continues to confuse!
Half time and we have definitely impressed in that half, attacking continuously and defending well as always. Some excellent goal attempts by Podence and Neves have brought out good saves from De Gea who always seems to frustrate us!! I would like to see Adama get a run out at some point.
Man Utd 0 Wolves 0
Good half, the better side. Trouble is we are still 0-0 and that worries me. We have to play this same way for the whole 90 minutes now and I am concerned this will turn into one of those magnificent displays which ends in defeat.
C’mon lads, great half …… just need to get it in the net.
Fabio gives away a free kick on the edge of our area which brings a great save out of Jose and that’s it all over our first win for 42 years at Old Trafford. What a great game
Utd 0; Wolves 1
Absolutely fantastic performance, not one player at any time let us down and both Trincao and Fabio both looked up to the challenge. If we can continue to play like this then we should have no worries for the second half of the season. Podence was very influential and Neves is just getting better and better. What a start to the New Year.
What a match. In any match, you need the luck, Fernandes hits the bar, that was ours, but anybody who watched that couldn’t deny we were the better side for 80% of that game and superior in both halves. We should have scored more, that’s the issue, Man Utd should have been put to the sword well and truly, however no complaints for the eventual score line. Every player played his part in this fine win. Obviously fabulous goal, with Neves and Saiss going oh so close too. Podence the Sky MOTM, probably about right but again …… the trio of Saiss - Coady - Kilman quite superb. Competent and confident keeping from Sa with an excellent save with the very last touch of the match. My heart was going the clappers at that point ….. sure I wasn’t the only one!
Exhilarating stuff!
Well done lads. Expunging the stats and records I mentioned in the intro! Absolutely love it!!!
Fantastic.
Brilliant 1st half and apparently the most goal attempts we've had in the Premier League. Absolutely out-played Utd. Just a pity about the usual problem.
Utd came at us more in 2nd half but I suppose that was to be expected and apart from the free-kick at the end, never looked like scoring. Yes, they hit the crossbar but so did we.
I can't believe how well this defence is playing and although it's down to the whole team to an extent, I hope we don't miss Saiss too much.
A great strike by Joao but according to Ian Wright and Andy Cole it was because he was given too much time so it must have been just luck ( that's sarcasm by the way ).
Impossible for me to pick out one player as everyone did their bit and I have to say that Fabio did well when he came on.
Marvellous. Still on a high.
As per usual …… and entirely predictable ……. The entire post match focus is on Man Utd. It really is a total disgrace. We outplayed that shower, yet Ince and Redknapp (and the rest of them) just don’t seem to have the knowledge of any side outside of those sides who wanted to destroy English football as part of the Super League Quislings. They don’t appear to want to have and generate that knowledge either.
Ivybridge Wolf As per usual …… and entirely predictable ……. The entire post match focus is on Man Utd. It really is a total disgrace. We outplayed that shower, yet Ince and Redknapp (and the rest of them) just don’t seem to have the knowledge of any side outside of those sides who wanted to destroy English football as part of the Super League Quislings. They don’t appear to want to have and generate that knowledge either.
It looks like a promising New Year as far as Wolves are concerned.
Excellent performance. I agree with Ivy.re. the so called "Top 4" pundit experts.
"Absolute shower," as Terry Thomas would have said.
HappyNew Year Risca and all board members, and what a great start it was.
I also want to say how well I thought Mike Dean did last night. Like Andy F I was dubious about him before the game in view of previous experiences, but I thought he handled the game very fairly and efficiently. The fact that Utd had 3 yellow cards for cynical fouls, and we had one in the last minutes for time wasting speaks volumes about the game and the way we played.
I doubt many me members will have made any progress in the Prediction League on this result!!
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