Wolves 2, Manchester United 0
Bruno Fernandes was sent off for the third time this season as Manchester United fell to a 2-0 defeat to Wolves at Molineux.
Goals by Matheus Cunha and Hwang Hee-chan condemned the Reds to a fifth defeat in December in the space of 22 days in all competitions.
Fernandes, who will miss Monday’s Old Trafford showdown with Newcastle United along with Manuel Ugarte who collected his fifth booking of the season, was dismissed after being shown his second yellow card of the game in the 47th minute.
A third red card in a season for the first time since Nemanja Vidic in the 2008-09 season.
Neither side had shown much attacking prowess in a first half that had few fireworks like the ones before the start of the game.
But once the Reds had been reduced to ten men their hosts upped a gear to take full advantage – firstly they had a disallowed goal as VAR correctly disallowed a Jorgen Strand Larsen goal for offside.
But there was no reprieve the next time as Wolves punished the Reds after 58 minutes.
Firstly, Cunha emulated the feat of Son Heung-min a week ago for Tottenham when he lofted a corner directly past the hapless United keeper Andre Onana.
And then 9 minutes into injury time after Wolves had opted to hold on to their slender lead, they took full advantage of United’s desperation to get an equaliser to deliver the the killer blow when Cunha unselfishly squared the ball for substitute Hwang Hee-chan to make it 2-0 with ease.
Defeat meant that United dropped to 14th in the Premier League and only Southampton (with 6 defeats) have more defeats in the league than Ruben Amorim (with 5) since the Portuguese took over at the ailing Reds.
And with away games against Liverpool and Arsenal to come after the visit of Newcastle on Monday it’s possible that the Reds could be out of the FA Cup and facing the Saints in a relegation six-pointer by mid January as Wolves lifted themselves out of the drop zone to 17th with Vitor Pereira’s second consecutive win at the helm.