Moutinho wants Wolves to kick on from Man Utd win

Decisive strike - Joao Moutinho (C) celebrates after scoring the only goal of Wolves' 1-0 win away to Manchester United in the Premier League

Moutinho wants Wolves to kick on from Man Utd win

AFP Author • AFP • 14:56 - 04.01.2022

Decisive strike - Joao Moutinho (C) celebrates after scoring the only goal of Wolves' 1-0 win away to Manchester United in the Premier League

Wolves' Joao Moutinho wants his team's victory at Manchester United to act as a springboard after scoring the winner in the club's first success at Old Trafford in 42 years.

Moutinho's goal gave Wolves a 1-0 win on Monday to leave the Midlands club eighth in the Premier League -- just one place and three points behind United. 

It was no more than Wolves deserved after they managed an impressive 15 shots in the first half alone before the 35-year-old Moutinho struck late on to secure the team's first win at United since 1980.

"For me, I wanted to help the team of course with a goal, winning here at Old Trafford, against a big team, very good players, a good coach, it's amazing for us," Moutinho told Wolves' website.

"We came here to play our game, play football, play with the ball --- that's what we did in the first half."

The Portuguese midfielder added: "I think we created a lot of opportunities, a lot of shots, but we didn't score... We deserved this victory, this win, and I hope we can continue with these performances."

The result saw United suffer their first defeat under interim manager Ralf Rangnick, with a lacklustre display leaving the English giants four points adrift of the top four and a place in next season's Champions League.

United defender Luke Shaw even went so far as to question the attitude of his team-mates, prompting former Red Devils and England centre-back Rio Ferdinand to write on Twitter: "For any team to be described like this is terrible... but by a player who participated it's a damning reflection on the team!"

One consolation for United was the performance of centre-back Phil Jones, who betrayed few signs of a lengthy injury lay-off in what was his first appearance for the club in 708 days.

"What Phil's been through the last few years... criticised daily, been injured for over a year," left-back Shaw told MUTV. "He's had it all going against him, people against him, but he's stuck by it.

"He's been a great professional, trained so well. I think maybe his chance has been coming because he's been training really well and he's deserved it."

var widgetLoaderConfig = widgetLoaderConfig || { CDN_URL: 'https://widgets.sportal365.com', APP_LINK: 'desktop', API_URL: 'https://africa.football.api.sportal365.com/', API_KEY: '2f852b4de2f3a5cf3188e74b33087bb4:2c18422f8e826a7d11aeed52edb2449e', LANG: 'en', REQUEST_INTERVAL: 30, ENABLE_BET_SLIP: false, AUTHOR: false, THEME: "light", TOURNAMENT_ORDER: "pulse_nigeria", LINK_OPTIONS_V2: { 'player' : { 'url': '/football/player/{playerId}' }, 'team' : { 'url': '/football/{teamId}' }, 'tournament': { 'url': '/football/competition/{tournamentId}' }, 'match': { 'url' : '/football/match/{matchId}', 'sort': { 'criteria': 'alphabetically', 'direction': 'asc' } }, 'configuration': { 'newWindow': false }, 'standings_tournament': { 'url': '/football/competition/{tournamentId}/standings' } } }; if (!document.querySelector('script[src="https://widgets.sportal365.com/loader.bundle.min.js"]')) { window.setTimeout(function () { let scriptCss = document.createElement('link'); scriptCss.href = 'https://www.pulsesports.ug/css/sport-widgets.css?v=1668785443'; scriptCss.rel = 'stylesheet'; scriptCss.type = 'text/css'; document.body.appendChild(scriptCss); let scriptTag = document.createElement('script'); scriptTag.src = 'https://widgets.sportal365.com/loader.bundle.min.js'; scriptTag.defer = true; scriptTag.onload = function () { window.setTimeout(function () { new SMPWidgetsLoader(widgetLoaderConfig); }, 200); }; document.head.appendChild(scriptTag); }, 0); } else { new SMPWidgetsLoader(widgetLoaderConfig); }