UNITED DECLINE FEELS TERMINAL
They’re a mid-table team in waiting as Cresswell curls a cracker to seal their fate
ONE of these teams is finally moving slowly forwards, the other continues to regress. So why would anybody be surprised that West Ham saw off Manchester United rather routinely?
For those who have not been watching properly, this is what United have become. A mid-table Premier League team in waiting.
The only real question is whether the rest of the sides supposedly challenging for the top-six positions have the wherewithal to put them there.
The occasional result can hide a few things. For example, last season’s win at Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League saw Ole Gunnar Solskjaer given the manager’s job. On the opening day of this season, United beat Chelsea 4-0.
But any horse can win a race with only one other in it from time to time. The truth lies in patterns, in sequences, and United have won five of 19 games since that night in Paris and scored just 16 goals at an average of less than one a game.
That’s the true picture of where this team is at.
It is also to be found in the fact that Ashley Young still gets a game, that the bench is populated by players who could take a trip to Manchester’s Arndale Centre and not be recognised, and that United sold their main centre-forward in the summer and did not replace him.
As one wag suggested last night, with Marcus Rashford now injured, the only recognised goalscorer left is Solskjaer.
When Rashford, who was dreadful, went off in the second half, midfielder Jesse Lingard replaced him.
So United are vulnerable and the rest of the Premier League know it. Some have taken a while to cotton on but not West Ham.
Manuel Pellegrini’s team beat them at this ground almost exactly a year ago and have improved since then.
For a while, it was a poor game. United leaden and one-paced, West Ham slow to find a rhythm.
But the home side offer greater invention these days and are more reliable now that some of their more capricious players — Marko Arnautovic and Javier Hernandez to name two — have left.
They no longer look to the injuryprone Jack Wilshere for salvation either — he began on the bench — and instead have the wit and imagination of Felipe Anderson and Andriy Yarmolenko.
Those two creatives are now in their second season in the English game and it shows. At the base of midfield, Mark Noble and Declan Rice impressed. Noble was lucky not to be sent off for a lunge at Aaron Wan-Bissaka not long before he won the free-kick that allowed Aaron Cresswell to curl in the decisive second goal.
At that point, United were still in the game but only just.
Solskjaer’s team did not create a chance of note in the first half and went in a goal down in the 44th minute as West Ham slowly gathered momentum.
Anderson saw Yarmolenko in half a yard of space and delivered a pass that needed to be controlled instantly and struck purely.
The Ukrainian managed both, moving the ball inside to place Harry Maguire off balance and then striking a low shot across David de Gea and inside the far post with great accuracy.
United were more dangerous in the second period but the contest was decided by a flurry of activity in the final half hour.
De Gea denied Anderson with his knee at his near post. Then Lukasz Fabianski saved brilliantly from Maguire.
That was to be United’s last chance and West Ham skewered them with six minutes left.
Young’s foul on Noble was clumsy and Cresswell’s execution, high to De Gea’s left, was perfect.
Solskjaer refused to criticise his players after the defeat but this decline feels terminal.
‘The players are doing what I’m asking them to do,’ he said after Roy Keane and Jose Mourinho pilloried their performance on Sky. ‘The problem is the quality in our decision-making but it’s a good group to work with. They are determined.’
It takes a lot to turn off the club’s away fans but this United are testing everybody’s patience. It may get worse before it gets better. WEST HAM (4-2-3-1): Fabianski 7; Fredericks 6 (Zabaleta 79), Diop 7, Ogbonna 7, Cresswell 7; Noble 8, Rice 7; Yarmolenko 8 (Snodgrass 88), Fornals 7, Anderson 7 (Wilshere 70); Haller 6. Subs not used: Roberto, Balbuena, Sanchez, Ajeti. Booked: Ogbonna, Noble. MANCHESTER UNITED (4-2-3-1): De Gea 6; Wan-Bissaka 6, Maguire 6, Lindelof 5, Young 5; Matic 5 (Fred 70), McTominay 5; Pereira 6, Mata 5 (Gomes 80), James 6; Rashford 4 (Lingard 60). Subs not used: Romero, Rojo, Tuanzebe, Chong. Booked: Young. Man of the match: Mark Noble. Referee: Anthony Taylor. Attendance: 59,936.