The final Premier League match before the break for the third round of the FA Cup takes place on Monday evening when Manchester United look to continue their recent upturn in form when they go up against a stubborn Wolverhampton Wanderers side at Old Trafford.
United have watched on this weekend as rivals for the top four have all won with the exception of Arsenal but they can move to within a point of the Gunners if they win this match. Wolves remain in the top half and can start a push for Europe of their own with a win here.
Where to watch
The match will be shown live and in full on the Monday Night Football programme on Sky Main Event and Sky Premier League. The show begins at 5pm and kick off at Old Trafford is at 5.30pm.
Manchester United
I wouldn’t say it has been entirely convincing since Ralf Rangnick took over but the German has steadied the United ship with 10 points from the four matches he has been in charge of. He has had a soft schedule I think it is fair to say but you can only beat what is in front of you, and although there has been nothing special or eye catching about the wins, they have won three matches and slowly but surely that will start to build confidence.
Goals were looking like they might be a concern under the German but three against Burnley on Thursday night will have eased a few fears in that department. Manchester United look a little more solid at the back under Rangnick but that would have been pretty difficult not to achieve. The task for them now is to build up their level of performance because if they don’t they will get found out at some point from here on in.
Wolverhampton Wanderers
This has been a bit of a weird season for Wolverhampton Wanderers, one which hasn’t been helped by all of their Christmas fixtures being postponed. In a way that might not have been a bad thing because in three of their previous four completed games they played high intensity matches against Liverpool, Manchester City and Chelsea so a bit of a rest might not have been a bad thing. Whether they would have wanted to go 16 days without a game is a different story though.
Those 16 days will at least have given Bruno Lage time to think about how his side are going to score more goals because they only have 13 of them in the 18 Premier League matches they have played this term. That isn’t a long-term route to success. Defensively they are stout once again but they aren’t really going to go places while they struggle to score and they head to Old Trafford having scored just two goals in their last eight matches.
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Team News
Manchester United will have Bruno Fernandes back for this match after he missed the win over Burnley through suspension. Ralf Rangnick has suggested he hopes Victor Lindelof will be available but Paul Pogba is out and Harry Maguire is a doubt.
Wolves have had their issues with Covid over the last week but most of their positive tests came early last week so they shouldn’t be missing too many here. Hwang Hee-chan, Jonny and Pedro Neto are all out with injuries though.
Betting
This match looks like a banker under 2.5 goals game and had this been at a normal time of the year I’d have happily indulged in it but we’ve seen a lot of goals in the Premier League recently because of the relentless schedule and teams lacking preparation and personnel because of Covid so I can let a fairly tight price ride in that regard this time around. If it is a low scoring game as I fancy though then Wolverhampton Wanderers should be in it throughout and that is the angle I’ll take here.
In the last month or so Wolves have played the top three in the table, losing agonisingly in the last minute to Liverpool and holding their own with City with just 10 men for 45 minutes. They also held Chelsea and while the concern is that they didn’t score in those matches, none of those three sides opened them up and I’m not convinced a pretty ordinary United side are going to excel in doing that here. That makes me think that the +1 Asian line on the visitors is a good thing here. Although they don’t score many goals, Raul Jimenez will be a handful for this United defence while Adama Traore could cause havoc against a slow back four. There should be opportunities for Wolves in this one and I think they can get something from the game but even if they are edged out like they were against City and Liverpool we’ll get our stake back. That seems good value to invest in the away side to me.
Tips
WON – Back Wolverhampton Wanderers (+1AH) to beat Manchester United for a 3/10 stake at 1.85 with Bet365
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