UNITED FALL BEHIND TIMES
Ole’s side are unable to mount usual comeback
WEST BROM 1 MANCHESTER UTD 1 SEVEN times this season Manchester United have come from behind to land the spoils but an eighth proved beyond them against stubborn West Brom.
Bruno Fernandes’s smart volley cancelled out Mbaye Diagne’s headed opener at either end of a finely balanced, if low quality, first half.
And while the second opened up into a blizzard of chances – the best it has to be said falling to SamAllardyce’s side – none were taken.
West Brom’s Diagne, a January loan signing from Galatasaray, might have had a hat-trick on another day while Scott McTominay had a shot cleared off the line and Harry Maguire’s header in the fifth minute of stoppage time was tipped on to the post by Sam Johnstone.
Given their respective needs, it was a result that was unsatisfactory all round, really.
United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, right, was left to draw on the positives of his side extending their unbeaten run on the road to 19 games despite conceding further ground to Manchester City and Leicester in the title race.
For West Brom, a point was scant reward given the chances they created and only a second draw from their past six assignments leaves them a dozen points from safety.
United barely touched the ball in the first two minutes as West Brom made a bright and aggressive start, and after just 83 seconds they were ahead. The breakthrough was simple in construction, Robert Snodgrass and Conor Gallagher combining on the right flank and the latter swinging in an inviting cross, which Diagne met ahead of an outmuscled Victor Lindelof.
The hosts might have had another halfway through the first period, Conor Townsend swinging a mirror-image ball in from the opposite flank
that Snodgrass headed and David De Gea tipped over.
It was perhaps no surprise that Fernandes drew United level but in truth he had a poor game, moaning throughout as misplaced passes and fouls not given wound him up.
Yet his volley in the shadow of half-time, meeting Luke Shaw’s cross from the left byline, flew into the top corner. His equaliser enlivened proceedings.
United had a penalty given then rightly chalked off after referee Craig Pawson decided after a second look that the challenge of Semi Ajayi on an offside Maguire as the pair tussled for a Fernandes free-kick was innocent. Substitute Mason Greenwood had a shot from 12 yards saved by the outstretched leg of Johnstone and the follow-up from McTominay was cleared off the line by Darnell Furlong. Before Maguire’s last-ditch effort was tipped on to the post by Johnstone, West Brom had three golden chances to nick all three points. Diagne beat Maguire
to a long ball on 75 minutes but, with time to pick his spot, he fired too close to De Gea, the United keeper getting up to knock away the rebound as the striker looked sure to nod home.
Then, two minutes from time, Senegal international Diagne had an even better chance to take the points, only to balloon Furlong’s perfectly-weighted centre over from five yards with the goal at his mercy.
With sharper finishing West Brom would have been out of sight before Maguire’s late chance and they will undoubtedly look back on this as a missed opportunity. United will share their pain.