Manchester United 2 Wolves 1
Wolves went within seconds of continuing their revival when they were denied a hugely deserved point.
Wolves went within seconds of continuing their revival when they were denied a hugely deserved point.
The Manchester United winner came three minutes into stoppage time.
Ji-Sung Park tucked home a shot that crept just inside goalkeeper Marcus Hahnemann's inside post, to cancel out a 66th equaliser from substitute Sylvan Ebanks-Blake's third goal of the season.
It was mightily cruel on Wolves, who after shading a subdued first-half were undone by Park's first goal on the stroke of half-time.
Ebanks-Blake's reply was Wolves' first league goal at the Theatre of Dreams since February 1980 – and it almost clinched their first point there since later the same year.
Wolves mounted a second half rearguard after equalising, Karl Henry making a superb sliding challenge to deny Park a goalscoring chance with five minutes left, after Gabriel Obertan flashed an overhead kick wide.
Just before that, the visitors wasted the chance to have snatched a dramatic winner when sub Steven Fletcher blazed over with 10 minutes left, after fellow substitute Michael Mancienne's pass following a poor header from Nemanja Vidic.
Ironically, it was Fletcher's careless pass intended for Matt Jarvis that was intercepted for United to pile forward for the winner.
Earlier, Wolves had a let-off in the 13th minute when Stephen Ward allowed Bebe to take the ball off him, but his shot was blocked by a combination of Christophe Berra and Richard Stearman.
With Wolves dominating possession, United's next chance arrived on the counter-attack when Obertan drove wide with the visitors outnumbered.
But McCarthy's side remained the better side and Nenad Milijas' goalbound shot hit fellow Serbia international Nemanja Vidic and bounced out for a corner.
They were inches away from taking the lead when Stephen Hunt slid in to convert Jarvis' dangerous cross, only to arrive fractionally too late.
United made Wolves pay though with Park's goal just seconds before half-time.
Wolves were perhaps guilty of ball-watching, as Darren Fletcher threaded a pass through for the winger to drill past Hahnemann.
The second-half got off to a slow start and there was little action until Bebe's low drive was held by Hahnemann, at the second attempt from Patrice Evra's pull-back.
But despite trailing, Wolves' heads never dropped and they deservedly drew level through Ebanks-Blake.
The fomer United reserve turned onto Milijas' angled shot and rifled home left-footed, after the Serbian swept the ball wide to Kevin Doyle then worked the ball out to the other flank for Jarvis to find him again.
Hahnemann was in action again soon after as United poured forward in search of the winner, springing to his left to get a hand to Javier Hernandez's fizzing left-footed effort to palm it around the post.
But there were no further chances until Fletcher's golden opportunity.
And Wolves will be left rueing what might have been, after another display full of quality and endeavour.
