West Ham United vs Manchester United: Post-match analysis

 

What a match! That last 10 minutes had it all. From a Jesse Lingard stunner to David De Gea penalty save. In a match where the referee was incompetent, United prevailed to come out on top. Let’s analyse how the game went from the start!

Slow tempo at the start

This has been a major problem for Ole’s sides since last season. We often start the game slowly. We are not aggressive enough on and off the ball which more often than not results in us conceding goals.

This was the same case again today. United played with a slower tempo than required. We didn’t go at them aggressively and were struggling to break them down. We did get some chances but nothing big.

Then we concede as usual from a deflected goal. One thing this team is exceptional at is reacting to conceding a goal. We scored within 5 minutes. We played much better with a higher tempo and were more aggressive. This resulted in a goal.

We need to start the games well. This type of stuff is not sustainable even if the records show. We can be unstoppable if we play at a higher tempo.

Dull 2nd half

After our 1st goal, we started playing well till halftime. We needed to continue that in 2nd half. But, the quality of both teams was very dull in the second half.

Pogba started taking way too much time on the ball and this slowed our play and allowed west ham to form a low block. We went back to playing the game at a slowish tempo.

Lingard and Sancho for Pogba and Greenwood were good substitutions by Ole. Lingard’s off the ball movement and Sancho’s linkup play and directness were much needed in this game. Matic for Fred was also good as Matic is better at passing than Fred which eventually resulted in him giving an assist for Jesse Lingard’s stunning goal.

Poor standards of Refereeing

The Premier League is the biggest and best league in the world in terms of player/team qualities. But, the referees here are arguably the worst out of the top 5 leagues. Martin Atkinson was poor tonight. We had 2 stonewall penalties denied which could have cost us the game on any other day. Shaw’s hand in the handball was in a natural place but Westham were given the penalty for that.

VAR is always the point of discussion in this league. They are operated perfectly everywhere except the PL. They need to fix this issue ASAP.

Conclusion

All in all, we deserved the 3 points. It would have been heartbreaking if we dropped points today. We were better than them for the majority of the match and had unfair decisions against us. We need to improve our execution in the final third for sure.

Let us know in the comment section down below about your thoughts on the match.

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