Marcus Rashford came off the bench to give Manchester United all three points in what was a tight affair with Wolves.
The forward was left out of the starting lineup by Erik ten Hag for disciplinary reasons but came to their rescue to end 2022 on a high.
Man Utd edged the opening 10 minutes of the match, winning a few corners and almost scoring from them with Casemiro having a goal-bound header deflected over the bar.
All the talk heading into the game was about how Rashford had been dropped, and replacement Alejandro Garnacho had a huge chance to make his mark 16 minutes in after being played in by a poor back pass from Nelson Semedo, but Josa Sa saved his effort.
Wolves had two chances of their own after that with Aaron Wan-Bissaka blocking a shot inside the box from Joao Moutinho before Diego Costa fired straight at David de Gea.
The game then briefly began to open up with Anthony Martial and Ruben Neves ending up with the ball in their opponent’s respective boxes but seeing their efforts blocked by defenders.
37 minutes in, Antony had the opportunity to break the deadlock but headed a cross from Tyrell Malacia straight at Sa from the middle of the penalty area.
The winger then had an even bigger one just before the end of the first half with a misplaced effort from Martial falling to him perfectly, but the Brazilian couldn’t get enough power on a stooped header to get it past Sa, meaning the sides went into the break level.
Adama Traore replaced Costa for the second half and got involved immediately, going on two good runs and sending in two dangerous crosses that his team-mates weren’t able to get on the end of.
Man Utd had made a change too, bringing Rashford on for Garnacho, and some good play from the England international at the other end saw the ball fall to Antony in the Wolves box but Sa was once again on hand to keep the Brazilian out.
His opposite number then produced some heroics of his own with De Gea diving across his goal to keep out a free-kick from Ruben Neves.
The flow of the game was disrupted by injuries and substitutions after that but Rashford injected life back into it after 76 minutes when he opened the scoring from inside the box after playing a quick one-two with Fernandes and using his strength to hold off Wolves defenders before firing in.
He briefly thought he’d got bagged his second goal eight minutes later but had it ruled out by VAR as he handled the ball in the process.
That left Wolves with some hope heading into the closing…
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