Ruben Neves highlights Manchester United set-piece troubles with telling comment

Wolves star Ruben Neves has highlighted one of the defensive issues Manchester United have that they looked to exploit.

The Portuguese midfielder has been immense since the Midlands club earned promotion to the English top-flight. Bruno Lage led his side to a rare Old Trafford win this season as Joao Moutinho scored the deciding goal in a cagey affair - from a Reds point of view.

United's defeat was the first in Ralf Rangnick's temporary reign. Although he didn't score the winning goal, Neves saw his spectacular effort from outside the box turned round the post by David de Gea.

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And as Neves told The Athletic, it was an incident that pinpointed one of the Reds' weaknesses.

He said: "We work on set pieces a lot, every week. We knew United just put one man outside their box, so the idea was to put Fernando Marcal and me outside the box.

"I knew if the cross travelled beyond the penalty spot, normally it will be cleared more to the right and not towards Marcal. If the ball goes short and is headed away from the near post, it will come towards Marcal.

"But behind the penalty spot, it will go back (to the right). As soon as I saw the ball going beyond the penalty spot, normally it will come to me.

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"And because they only have one player outside the box, he’ll be in the centre — to cover Marcal and me. As soon as I saw the ball behind the penalty spot, I took two or three steps back and then controlled and shot."

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