Manchester United are just a point away from a top-4 spot on the Premier League ladder after thrashing Wolverhampton.
Manchester United climbed to sixth in the Premier League on Monday as captain Bruno Fernandes scored twice to help them claim a comfortable 4-1 victory at bottom club Wolverhampton Wanderers, whose calamitous season grows bleaker by the week.
Dispirited Wolves fans spent most of the first half chanting in protest at the club’s Chinese owners, Fosun, and their mood worsened when Fernandes gave United a 25th-minute lead.
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To their credit, Wolves showed some enterprise, and they were cheered off at half-time after Haiti international Jean-Ricner Bellegarde fired home an equaliser in stoppage time.
Bryan Mbeumo restored United’s lead with a tap-in after 52 minutes, and Mason Mount’s composed finish made it 3-1 just past the hour mark. Fernandes completed the job for United with a penalty after VAR spotted a handball.
When nine minutes of stoppage time were announced, the Wolves fans still inside Molineux booed and sang “blow the whistle”.
Ruben Amorim’s United have 25 points from 15 games, while Wolves’ club-record eighth successive league defeat, and 13th of the season, left them marooned on two points and in danger of setting some unwanted Premier League history.
Their tally of points is the joint-lowest after 15 games in the history of England’s top four tiers, and they are without a league win since April, losing 16 and drawing three since.
Wolves are now 13 points from the safety zone, and the talk is not whether they will be able to mount an escape bid but whether they can surpass the lowest-ever Premier League points haul of Derby County, who managed only 11 in 2007-08.
United looking up
While Wolves are looking down, United are beginning to look up, and while there were times in the first half when they looked vulnerable, their second-half display was silky.
They ended up with 27 goal attempts, the most since Amorim took charge, and could have won by a larger margin.
“Attacking with freedom. I thought some of the combinations going forward were crisp, were sharp, and that’s what we can do,” said Mount, who dispatched a sweet first-time volley from Fernandes’s chipped ball into the area.
Fernandes had opened the scoring by scooping a shot past Sam Johnstone in the Wolves goal despite falling over.
United lost some control, though, and Wolves levelled just before the interval when Bellegarde fired home after David Moller Wolfe’s shot had bounced into his path.
It was the first goal Wolves had scored in 540 minutes, but after a brief burst of joy, the gloom once again descended in the second half when Diogo Dalot squared for Mbeumo to score.
After Mount’s goal, Fernandes bagged his second of the night with a typically confident penalty after Yerson Mosquera was adjudged by VAR to have handled a goal-bound shot.
Wolves were jeered off and manager Rob Edwards, who replaced Vítor Pereira last month, said he could not blame them.
“There was an anger in the stadium. The lads are trying. The supporters are angry, and I get it,” he said.
“It’s the toughest league in the world, and we came into a team who hadn’t won since April. I wasn’t anticipating a quick turnaround.”
With a trip to Premier League leaders Arsenal next, things are likely to get worse before they get better for the Midlands club.
