West Ham United condemned more pain upon Jose Mourinho’s Manchester United with a 3-1 victory at the London stadium.
Two goals in the first-half and one in the second proved enough for Manuel Pellegrini’s men to take all three points from this fixture, and continue to march on up the table.
There was two main talking points before the game, both in the attacking lineups, with star man Marko Arnautovic back for the Hammers, whilst Alexis Sanchez was left at home by Jose Mourinho.
Dream start for the Hammers
The first real chance of the game resulted in the first goal, falling the way of the Hammers.
Mark Noble picking up the ball inside the United half, before playing a teasing pass in behind towards Pablo Zabaleta, who simply squared the ball to the unmarked Felipe Anderson for the Brazilians first goal for the club – a nightmare start for Mourinho’s men.
There were question marks over a possible offside in the build-up, although nothing was given.
It took United until the 20-minute mark to really start to show any threat going forward, with Romelu Lukaku looking the most likely outlet to get the Red Devils back into the game.
The Belgian’s best chance came from an Ashley Young cross, which he attacked well, however, couldn’t quite hit the target as the ball slammed off the outside of the post.
Defensive efforts seek reward
Pellegrini would’ve been very impressed with his sides defensive efforts throughout the first 45, containing United well and limiting them to very few chances.
It then got even better for the Irons, right on the stroke of half-time as the home side got a rare corner, which was whipped in before bouncing out to Andriy Yarmolenko.
He worked a bit of space and looked to bend the ball into the far corner, however, a superb bit of luck occurred as the ball deflected off Victor Lindelof and into the back of the net, leaving David de Gea with no chance, and the East Londoners in dreamland.
United will have felt hard done by to be trailing 2-0 at the break, as they weren’t too bad for large spells of the half, although the home side would’ve felt as though they deserved the lead, after starting well and restricting Mourinho’s men with organised, compact defending.
A change in system from Mourinho
There were no changes by Mourinho at the break, raising a few eyebrows, as he’s usually not one to shy away from his bench when things aren’t going his way.
However, with his team still pedestrian 10 minutes into the second-half, the Portuguese boss did make a change, taking Lindelof off for Marcus Rashford, resulting in a change from five at the back to four.
A few minutes later, United had their best chance of the game so far. Young played a teasing cross into the middle, brilliantly picking out Marouane Fellaini who’s powerful, downwards header was superbly tipped wide by Lukasz Fabianski, who had virtually nothing to do up to this point. The Red Devils were starting to create.
United then got their noses back into the game, Luke Shaw whipping a corner into the near post, which substitute Rashford was able to flick past Fabianski for his first goal of the season.
Arnautovic seals the points
In typical fashion thus far this season, United managed to shoot themselves in the foot, just three minutes after getting back into the game.
The Reds lost the ball to Noble in midfield, who simply played a pass through to Arnautovic who slid the ball under De Gea to wrap up the three points for the Irons.
Again there were questions marks over the goal, with Pablo Zabaleta potentially fouling Rashford in the build-up, although the Irons would’ve undoubtedly felt hard done by had it been disallowed.
Another big victory for West Ham sees them now three unbeaten in the league – an impressive achievement given very difficult fixtures in recent weeks.
There will now be more headlines written about Mourinho, and possibly Paul Pogba following an underwhelming performance, as United could now slip 11 points off top spot should other results go against them this weekend.