Jacob Steinberg was at the London Stadium tonight, and here’s his match report.
United were loose in all departments. They almost saved themselves from a second consecutive away defeat at the start of added time, Anthony Martial twice going close to a dramatic equaliser, but they should not kid themselves.
United, whose lead over Liverpool is down to a point, were flat after falling behind to Saïd Benrahma’s goal. Moyes deserved this win over his old side. It took West Ham seven points above the bottom three and filled them with optimism before their Europa Conference League semi-final against AZ Alkmaar on Thursday.
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Thom Steele on that clash of heads. “You’re right in with the head injuries here in the States. I’m wondering about De Gea today in regards to that.”
Admir Pajic: “I think De Gea has always suffered from “you can’t teach size” problem. His inability to control the area cost United the title in his debut season (2011-12) when Blackburn, Wigan, Everton and Man City all took points thanks to his inability to command the area.
“As a shot-stopper, he has been magnificent and dragged United to 2nd place in 2017-18 on his own and sometimes it looked like he was a human octopus. Man Utd can find a replacement for him - there is a Spanish goalkeeper named David right in front of their eyes (in the league), gifted with almost playmaking distribution - but De Gea is hardly the only player they need to replace in order to compete with Man City. Wout Weghorst as No.9 at a big club, for instance, is like an Adam Sandler joke that is funny only to Adam Sandler.”
Tim Stappard: “No idea why you are hammering De Gea. He’s been the best player there for a decade “
Declan Rice speaks to BT Sport: Obviously it’s massive, the significance is massive. The lads, they gave it absolutely everything, to win this one we knew it was big. Some things go for you in football and that was one of those things. Yeah, I’m buzzing.”
What does that mean at the top and bottom?
| Pos | Team | P | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Man City | 34 | 58 | 82 |
| 2 | Arsenal | 35 | 44 | 81 |
| 3 | Newcastle | 34 | 32 | 65 |
| 4 | Man Utd | 34 | 8 | 63 |
| 5 | Liverpool | 35 | 25 | 62 |
| 6 | Tottenham Hotspur | 35 | 7 | 57 |
| 7 | Brighton | 32 | 22 | 55 |
| 8 | Aston Villa | 35 | 3 | 54 |
| 9 | Brentford | 35 | 7 | 50 |
| 10 | Fulham | 34 | -1 | 45 |
| 11 | Chelsea | 34 | -5 | 42 |
| 12 | Crystal Palace | 35 | -11 | 40 |
| 13 | Wolverhampton | 35 | -20 | 40 |
| 14 | AFC Bournemouth | 35 | -30 | 39 |
| 15 | West Ham | 35 | -12 | 37 |
| 16 | Leicester | 34 | -13 | 30 |
| 17 | Leeds | 35 | -25 | 30 |
| 18 | Nottm Forest | 34 | -32 | 30 |
| 19 | Everton | 34 | -25 | 29 |
| 20 | Southampton | 34 | -32 | 24 |
Full-time: West Ham 1-0 Manchester United
The Hammers are all but staying up, Manchester United are in trouble and have Liverpool fully on their tails now. David Moyes has a wide smile, while David de Gea looks like a man who knows he must face the music.
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90+9 min: West Ham make a final change. They’ve blunted their opponent for this long, now can they hang on? Shaw’s foul buys more time to be eaten up.
90+8 min: Rashford forces a corner, and then Fernandes cuts in and shoots wide. That was an awful waste and Ten Hag looks none too amused.
90+6 min: How much longer will those subs add? For the moment, momentum has been broken, too.
90+5 min: All Manchester United, and West Ham can make two subs. On come Flynn Downes for Paqueta, and Ben Johnson for Michail Antonio.
90+3 min: A sequence of Manchester United corners. Then Bruno Fernandes is caught offside. It’s not been his night at all.
90+1 min: Martial speeds through and then Fabianski makes a fine save, Aguerd having got in the way too. The corner comes in and Martial might have done better with that.
90 min: There will be eight minutes added on. Can West Ham hang on? Eight minutes to stay up
89 min: Declan Rice collects the ball in midfield and sorties along, then can only win a corner. It will do, and it will use up time.
87 min: Benrahma, West Ham’s great enigma, comes off, and on comes Fornals.
Fred and Dalot on, Wan Bissaka and Malacia off. Presuming that means a three-man defence.
85 min: Manchester United play hurry-up offense, at last. But that leaves open space. Shaw has to clear the danger from Paqueta. Casemiro heads the ball back across goal, and Fabianski is scrabbling. Casemiro: his season has dredged to a halt.
84 min: Manchester United look to use that break as a staging post. Benrahma goes down after a clash with Wan-Bissaka.
83 min: Both players continue. Is that wise? Feels unwise. Football and head injuries is one of those things that really never seems to fit, unless in the United States.
79 min: Expect a long delay here, both players down after a crunching clash of heads. Soucek is being stitched up while Dalot is coming on for Wan-Bissaka, who has been bleeding.
78 min: Good pass from Bruno now, Rashford curls his foot round the ball and Fabianski palms behind. From the corner there’s a nasty collision: Soucek, Wan-Bissaka and Fabianski, who punched the Manchester United defender on the temple. Urgh, grim.
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75 min: Ruth Purdue gets in touch: “A reminder that United have played more games than any in Europe. The manager hasn’t rested players when could have, for example Bruno.”
Fair point, well made. Ten Hag must share some blame though imagine dropping Bruno must be one of those tasks you never get around to doing as it’s such a pain to have to carry out.
74 min: Off go Eriksen and Antony, on come Sancho and Sabitzer. Antony looks annoyed when he had all but disappeared from the contest.
73 min: A De Gea fumble of an aerial ball goes unpunished but his defence cannot get the ball clear at all…Soucek heads in from a pearling Paqueta pass…but no goal….offside, this time it was the correct decision.
72 min: It’s still all West Ham, and Paqueta is striding around like Alan Devonshire in his prime.
71 min: Shane O’Leary gets in touch: “As an Eastender, are you enjoying the gentrification? Is there much gluten in an Eel, or is it in the jelly? Dot Cotton used to live over the road from me, lovely lady, had everything delivered, long before it was fashionable. Come on you Hammers. All the dead man’s chest.”
Well, I’d like to think I *am* the gentrification. The pies and mash/eel shop has just reopened I was glad to see. I have never tried it but am glad it’s back.
69 min: Sancho and Sabitzer coming on for United? No sign of Garnacho yet. But winning midfield would do for starters.
66 min: West Ham are the only team likely to score here. Paqueta whips his shot wide of the post, with Soucek hurling himself into space. At the other end, Rashford overhits a pass for Malacia. Bruno hit it anyway…it’s his first touch for a while.
Another of those games when Bruno, a hero to many, goes missing. He’s not alone in that, Eriksen has similarly flopped, but this does keep happening.
64 min: West Ham are on the rampage, and it’s Antonio on one of his runs, the only way he can be stopped is Aaron Wan-Bissaka steaming in to stop him. Lindelof was covering so that’s only a yellow card.
Manchester United have gone from poor to dreadful.
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63 min: Soucek almost scores at the near post. David de Gea was scrabbling all over the show.
61 min: David Moyes looks angst-ridden. Ok, David Moyes always looks angst-ridden but this one clearly matters.
59 min: Bowen scampers with purpose and sets up Paqueta, whose shot is less than purposeful. Good East End knees-up dahn the London tonight. Pwopah bank holiday, jolly boys beano stuff. Jellied eels, don’t mind if I do. (Disclaimer: your writer has lived in East London for 20 years.)
57 min: Manchester United change: Weghorst off, Martial on.
Garnacho may also be imminent.
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55 min: Manchester United are playing a bit Eredivisie-style, slow and deliberate. Talking of which, Weghorst swings and can’t beat Fabianski.
52 min: End to end stuff. Antony has a shot blocked and Paqueta speeds downfield, and Luke Shaw comes across to clear. One team attacks with speed, and it’s not the one from Manchester.
….Hang on, the ball’s back in the Manchester United goal. De Gea flaps like a budgie, and falls. Antonio breathes on him, and the ball loops in. The referee rules it out and so does VAR. That’s not a goal these days when it might be. De Gea could have been braver there but was touched.
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50 min: Aguerd heads this one wide….
49 min: West Ham corner, they scored from three last week. Weghorst, this time gets it clear, and then Soucek winds in another shot. Another corner.
47 min: West Ham fancy this. Lindelof comes across to stop a Benrahma cross, De Gea looking a little lost.
46 min: Off we go in the second half, which Manchester United begin with an odd goal-kick routine. It succeeds only in setting up West Ham with a chance for Jarrod Bowen, Just get it launched, David.
Peter Littley: “Did the ball come off Lindelof’s hand ?” No, it came off his elbow as he moved it down and out towards the ball. Clear handball.
“Are VAR watching this on a 50 year old black and white TV or have they left early for half time tea?”
I feel seen, and I’m not even on VAR duty.
A half-time rerun of that Lindelof penalty incident suggests David Moyes wuz robbed once more by VAR. We could be hearing more of that later. Peter Walton said it was a penalty, but only after the entire BT panel declared it a handball.
Joe Pearson: “I’m a Liverpool fan, so it’s OK. I think De Gea has a whiff of Heurelho Gomes from days gone by at Spurs. He can make all kinds of really impressive reaction saves, but there just seems to be a boneheaded mistake lying just below the surface.”
For UK viewers. Don’t have nightmares:
David de Gea will not want to see this one again! 🫣
— Football on BT Sport (@btsportfootball) May 7, 2023
Saïd Benrahma is gifted the opener of the game pic.twitter.com/5YOORsFsQ4
Half-time: West Ham 1-0 Manchester United
The sound of Sham 69’s If The Kids Are United signals half-time and it’s a 45 that will be recalled for a true keeping howler from David De Gea. The other news is that Manchester United aren’t very good at the moment while West Ham are better than they have been for a while.
45 min: More chaos in the Manchester United box. Benrahma comes inside, the danger is cleared. Did the ball come off Lindelof’s hand? The Hammers say so…VAR says no….Eriksen has a shot at the other end.
44 min: Philip Wainwright gets in touch: “I’m not an MU fan, but do think that DDG is the one keeper you’d want in your goal to save that top-corner bound effort. Would it be fair to say that he pulls off as many difficult/unlikely saves (that most other GKs would not be able to), thus negating the clangers?”
“On top of this, do you think the fact that MU are 16th in the table for chance conversion (and could very easily be 2-0 up already if their finishing wasn’t crap) would render his aberrations largely null and void?”
Good points well made, especially by this game so far.
43 min: Manchester United’s chance creation is not high. Wout Weghorst is no Teddy Sheringham, you’d fancy Teddy to find space and angles better than the Dutch dynamo. And Teddy’s 57 these days.
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41 min: Declan Rice is playing well against one of his potential suitors. He’s been far better than last week when he was run rings round at Selhurst Park.
39 min: Rashford shoots from distance, about as far back as Benrahama was. He shoots wide. A replay of the De Gea mistake does the Spaniard no favours.
38 min: Chaos as Bruno and Paqueta smash into each other, and then the ball breaks. It takes a scuttling Rice to come back and clear the danger.
36 min: Malacia goes into the back of Bowen, and it’s an ugly tackle, and a bookable one, too. The first yellow card of the night.
34 min: Andrew Flintoff, our one, not that one: “When do promising players cease to be promising, where an error can be disregarded as something they will improve on, and become error-prone, because they’ve not improved and still commit errors? Asking for David de Gea a friend.”
33 min: John Powers gets in touch: “Liverpool fans this time last week: Let me tell you something my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane. Liverpool fans right now: Remember Reds, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.”
32 min: Now, what can Ten Hag produce. The excuses have been rather prolific recently. Antony takes up the cudgels from the centre, hitting the post, and off Aguerd, whose part in it all was inadvertent.
30 min: West Ham fancy this now. De Gea, to his credit, reads this attack better and smothers the ball when Jarrod Bowen is galloping through.
29 min: That really was a catastrophe for David de Gea. And it could prove so costly. A player who once shone while others around him flopped has become a liability.
Goal! West Ham 1-0 Manchester United (Benrahma, 27)
Oh my, you’d have to say Alfred Stewart, fifth on the all-time United keepers’ list, would do flamin’ better than that. The ball is hit with little venom and creeps in. The worst thing you can say that it is not exactly uncharacteristic from the Spaniard. Benrahma took the shot on and his luck came in.
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25 min: Antony shoots, and Ogbonna’s bonce gets in the way. Those always look like they’d hurt.
24 min: Luke Shaw’s tackle on the halfway line stops a wildcat West Ham attack just when Paqueta looked to have Antonio barrelling in on goal.
22 min: West Ham seem to have weathered the storm that they faced in the opening 20 minutes, while also looking dangerous.
20 min: West Ham decide to enjoy possession for a moment. Rice sits deep and interchanges, and eventually Antonio runs to the line, and keeps it in. Eventually, the danger is cleared. The ball was yards behind and yet the ref played on.
18 min: Rashford hits the outside of the post, coming in from *his* position and smashing at goal. Fabianski was beaten. The post was not.
17 min: Panic as Benrahma’s ball fizzes across the box, Antonio hunting it down, Malacia chasing it away.
15 min: Feels like one of those games where you wonder how effective Manchester United might be with a striker. This time, Eriksen, not usually a bad finisher, is laid up by Antony but misses.
14 min: Bruno is the wild card here, drifting in and out, and Eriksen and Casemiro are passing in their little triangles.
12 min: West Ham at least look like they can hold their shape, but it will be Benrahama and Antonio – and Bowen – who will be asked to chase down channels.
10 min: What a miss from Antony, after dominance of possession from his team. Weghorst lays him up and he drives wide. Erik ten Hag is none too impressed.
7 min: Paqueta, so much improved from early season, tries to set away Antonio…and then Antony breaks, and instead of shooting, the ball is left for Fernandes to shoot wide. It’s breathless stuff so far. That was so close, just a whisker past the post.
6 min: Wan-Bissaka’s ball to the back post is headed away by Kehrer, with Bruno Fernandes surging on. The touch took it away.
4 min: Antonio, in usual style, presses up at the front. Maybe De Gea’s dodgy kicking being targeted? Declan Rice then surges on, and it’s Wout Weghorst who runs back to make the tackle.
3 min: And it’s all West Ham, piling forward, nice passes, and the visitors have to hack clear, and suddenly Rashford is away. At the other end, Benrahma took too long over a cross to the back post. A decent start so far.
1 min: They are away at the London Stadium, rolling with Sunday night cheers. It’s been a warm, sunny day in London. And plenty of chance for lubrication has been taken on.
Ten Hag and David Moyes shared quite a chat before kick-off….as expected, the National Anthem rings out loudly, with former Ireland international Declan Rice really looking into the Coronation vibe.
Quick pre-match quotes, speaking to BT Sport.
David Moyes: “It’s a bit of an unusual kick-off time in this country. It’s a really important game for us. We have to try and put Manchester United under pressure. We need to try and get something out of it.”
Christian Eriksen: “The temperature is still the same as any other game. We haven’t really spoken about it [Liverpool closing the gap to one point]. We’re just concentrating on ourselves. It’s always a tough game against West Ham. Every Premier League game is tough at the moment.”
Big game in the top-four/title race just now. Louise Taylor reports from St James’ Park.
Manchester City may be a point ahead at the top of the Premier League table with a game in hand but Arteta’s side are not about to surrender their title challenge just yet – and certainly not after coming through a significant test of character and courage on Tyneside with flying colours.
Big day for David de Gea, but how good would he be at running Summer Bay’s flamin’ surf club?
ℹ️ A landmark appearance awaits for @D_DeGea tonight 👏#MUFC || #WHUMUN
— Manchester United (@ManUtd) May 7, 2023
West Ham find themselves involved in a fight they really don’t want to be involved with.
West Ham: P 34, Pts 34, GD -13
Preparation for Wednesday’s defeat at the Etihad was hampered by a stomach bug, which made a change from generally being out of form and easy to beat. After the team finished seventh last season, Hammers fans would have hoped to build on such success but have been stuck in a battle to be the fourth-worst team in the league. Despite the struggles David Moyes has kept his job, aided by a Europa Conference League semi-final run and a lack of alternatives. Time is running out for him but finishing in the bottom three would be a sad end he is desperate to avoid.
Last four results (most recent first): L L L W. Remaining fixtures: Manchester United (h), Brentford (a), Leeds (h), Leicester (a).
United’s run-in is relatively kind and it would take some stumble for them to be overhauled in the race for fourth, but a defeat at West Ham coupled with Liverpool and Brighton continuing to win would make things more nervy.
“We need to be there, in the Champions League,” Ten Hag said. “We want to be there because we want to challenge the best teams in the world so we do everything in our power to get that done.”
For West Ham, Declan Rice, Tomas Soucek and Nayef Aguerd are back from sickness, with fans favourite Said Benrahma selected ahead of Pablo Fornals.
For Manchester United, Tyrell Malacia, Christian Eriksen and Wout Weghorst coming in for Anthony Martial, Fred and Diogo Dalot. Alejandro Garnacho is also fit to return to the bench after an ankle problem, and that’s a big boost to United’s run to the end of the season.
Here are the teams
West Ham: Fabianski, Kehrer, Ogbonna, Aguerd, Cresswell, Soucek, Rice, Bowen, Lucas Paqueta, Benrahma, Antonio. Subs: Johnson, Fornals, Lanzini, Downes, Areola, Cornet, Ings, Emerson Palmieri, Anang.
Man Utd: de Gea, Wan-Bissaka, Lindelof, Shaw, Malacia, Eriksen, Casemiro, Bruno Fernandes, Antony, Weghorst, Rashford. Subs: Maguire, Martial, Sabitzer, Fred, Dalot, Sancho, Butland, Williams, Garnacho.
Referee: Peter Bankes (Merseyside)
Preamble
The ever popular Sunday night kick-off beckons, and it’s an important match for both teams. Neither team is where they’d like to be, with Manchester United having resurgent Liverpool on their tail for the race for fourth place, and West Ham tottering over the survival line. Both lost their last match, United in the 99th minute to Brighton while the Hammers lost 4-3 to Crystal Palace in a match they had no right to be so close in then actually ran Manchester City closer next time, only to fold after half-time. The Hammers have a very leaky defence, their visitors are struggling to score goals.
Manchester United last lost at the London Stadium in September 2019, pandemic days. Both managers have Europe in mind; Erik ten Hag because making the Champions League was a big part of his remit and David Moyes has the Conference League in mind. Winning that may revalidate Moyes after what has been a poor season for West Ham. Beating his former club could add validation and cause them big trouble, too.
Kick-off 7pm, London spring time. Join me.
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