Wolves 2-0 Manchester United: Damaging defeat piles misery on Ruben Amorim as Bruno Fernandes sent off | OneFootball

Mathues Cunha and Hwang Hee-chan scored to pile on the pressure at United

Ruben Amorim’s tricky start to life at Manchester United continued as his side fell to a miserable 2-0 defeat at Wolves, who moved out of the relegation zone as a result.

They scored the opening goal when the mercurial Matheus Cunha curled home from a direct free-kick. Then, in the final minute of stoppage time, Cunha laid off Hwang Hee-chan selflessly to confirm all three points stayed at Molineux.

While the victory for Wolves moved them out of the Premier League drop zone for the first time in almost a month, defeat left the Red Devils 14th in the table and showing no signs of turning over a new leaf under new boss Amorim.

United started well but were unable to produce a positive response to their damaging 3-0 defeat at home to Bournemouth before Christmas.

Instead, they allowed new Wolves manager Vitor Pereira to pick up his second win in as many games after his tenure got off to a fine start with the 3-0 win over Leicester City.

Jose Sa made an impressive early save from Diogo Dalot, while Andre Onana got up well to claw over the bar from a Jorgen Strand Larsen header as the two sides played out an evenly contested and largely uneventful first half.

But the match burst into life soon after the restart when Fernandes became the first United player to earn three red cards in a single season in all competitions since Nemanja Vidic 16 years ago. The second of his two bookings came after a foul on Nelson Semedo.

United pushed for an equaliser late on after falling behind to a direct corner from Cunha - which the midfielder insisted he meant - just as they had done to Son Heung-min in the Carabao Cup defeat to Tottenham a week ago.

But a breakaway in the final minute of stoppage time allowed Cunha, clearly the man of the match, to square for late substitute Hwang to fire past Onana and make it a Boxing Day to forget for Amorim and Manchester United.

United could struggle to find an immediate response, with Newcastle, Liverpool and Arsenal their next three opponents.