Jose Mourinho has lamented his team’s bad fortune at times this term, but luck was on their side at the London Stadium on Monday.
Playing against 10 men for over four-fifths of the game, Manchester United were made to work for their three points by Slaven Bilic’s West Ham, who were on the wrong end of a number of contentious refereeing decisions.
It took both teams a while to get going in their first match of 2017, which was understandable given that their previous encounters had ended just over 48 hours earlier.
It was West Ham who had the better of the opening exchanges, though, with Manuel Lanzini going closest to opening the scoring in the first 10 minutes. The Argentine and Dimitri Payet combined neatly on the counter-attack after the hosts won possession inside their own half, before Lanzini’s strike from just outside the area was tipped around the post by David de Gea.
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The head of steam West Ham were threatening to build up soon dissipated, however, as Mike Dean stunned the home crowd by dismissing Sofiane Feghouli for a mistimed challenge on Phil Jones. It was a harsh decision: the Algerian may not have made any contact with the ball, but Jones was equally out of control and could easily have seen red himself. As it was, just a single card was produced, and Feghouli’s first Premier League start was brought to a premature end after only 14 minutes.
United then proceeded to take the sting out of the game with a sustained spell for possession, but there was little penetration to their passing and their first shot on goal did not arrive until the 35th minute, when Darren Randolph produced a wonder save to deny Antonio Valencia and then watched on as Jesse Lingard somehow contrived to turn the rebound against the post.
West Ham had their moments, too, most notably when Payet forced De Gea into action once more with a curling effort from 25 yards. Obvious feelings of injustice aside, Bilic would have been the happier of the two managers heading into the interval after his players’ spirited response to the early sending-off.
Mourinho reacted by sending on Juan Mata in place of Matteo Darmian at the start of the second period, but the change did not have the desired effect as United continued to struggle to make their numerical superiority count. The visitors saw plenty of the ball but were frequently sloppy in their use of it, with one particularly bad giveaway leading to a one-on-one which Michail Antonio should have converted.
Three minutes later, that miss looked even more pivotal than it had at the time. After teasing Havard Nordtveit with a tricky run down the left, Marcus Rashford’s crisp cutback was swept home by fellow substitute Mata, who celebrated his fourth goal of the season in front of the ecstatic travelling support.
West Ham seemed to lose belief when the ball hit the net, and United took control thereafter. A fierce shot from Rashford was almost spilt over the line by Randolph, before Zlatan Ibrahimovic — who was clearly offside when the ball landed at his feet — doubled Mourinho’s men’s lead with their next attack.
That gave the home side further cause for complaint, but United will believe they were owed a touch of good fortune. After a sluggish start, they made the most of it.
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