LUCK WITH A CAPITAL F
Manchester United 3 West Ham 0
Sometimes it pays to not get out of bed. Today feels like one of those days. I have leapt through several hoops to requisition a ticket for this game, and to organise my weekend around getting to it. I had a ticket for the December game at the Emirates but let it go based on West Ham’s fate there over the last 25 seasons. Old Trafford, though, well the Red Evils are total pants this season and we’ve just got our absent players back to give them a decent game. Can you see anything wrong with that sentence?
My driven route to the ground takes me to a free station parking space at Altrincham, a town that is beautiful, but misspelled. The c should really be a g, otherwise it’s alt-trinch-am, whereas locals say Altringham. Either spelling is highlighted red when you type it, so maybe it doesn’t actually exist. Pretty place, though, and from there you can get a tram direct to Old Trafford, which I do.
The tram drops you off outside Old Trafford, the home of Lancashire County Cricket Club, though this is still half a mile from the football ground. I’ve been here before in 2012 to see a London Olympics Football semi-final between South Korea and Mexico, strangely staged in the North West. And that’s another thing. This isn’t actually Manchester. It’s Trafford, and ‘old’ Trafford at that.
You enter the whole ‘Manchester United’ area (no bags allowed unless they are smaller than an A5 flyer, which isn’t a bag, is it?) and you are immediately overcome by the smell of deeply saturated fat cuisine, served by moustachioed men and red-bibbed women. No.
I am here too early, but there is a tribute presentation at the ground to commemorate the 66th anniversary of the Munich disaster, which is attended in the main by other West Ham fans who have also arrived early. They applaud politely, impeccably. We are not Millwall, after all. I was exactly one month old on that day way back then. Would that side have won everything? They may well have won the first European Cup in 1960 rather than having to wait until 1968.
The team pops up on the phone. No Paquetá. Aguerd starts, Coufal returns with Johnson moving to the right side of midfield. Phillips is on the bench with Mavropanos. No surprises there. But I have that feeling (that Moyes always expresses openly) about this being a very difficult place to win at, even though Brighton, Bournemouth and Crystal Palace have already managed it at a canter. What am I doing here? I should be tucked up on the sofa at home, ready to swear and change channels after the third goal, but no, I had to make the journey this season, if only to have a reason never to come here again in my life.
My standing area seat has an excellent view, which would all look very promising to anyone who couldn’t sense fate in the wind, see it in reflections off the puddles outside. And we start well, confidently, as we should do. We’re without Paquetá, but we didn’t need him at the Emirates. Álvarez is involved straight away, running with the ball, looking to hit the telling pass. Aguerd is quiet and passing sideways to Zouma or Emerson. The focus seems to be on building from the left, where there is some progress in the third quarter.
United are sloppy and dishevelled. This is certainly not one of their better sides. You sense they are there for the taking. That first quarter of an hour when the teams prod at each other like the young in a cage at the zoo. Neither looks confident, but for now West Ham prod and Manchester United block the prods.
Rasmus Hojlund is the latest new star in the home side, running at defences, fearless, ready to try anything if it looks possible. He makes the whole team look much better than it really is. Alejandro Garnacho is more of your typical United boy pin up, who can play a bit too. I already have these two down as Ones to Watch.
And it’s not long before Hojlund justifies my close attention. Hammers have started well and enjoyed more of the ball than an away side should in the first 15 minutes, but when yet another attack breaks down, Casemiro wins the loose ball and puts Hojland in a good position from which he hammers home past Areola after swerving across and past West Ham’s flimsy defence. West Ham have dominated possession but still go in at half time a goal down.
Early in the second half Emerson grabs a loose ball off terminal refusenik Harry McGuire but, just as the equaliser appears to have been put on a plate, the Italian finishes in two minds and his cross / shot ends up with the ball scooped up over the bar. Hammers have had to replace Areola with Fabianski at the beginning of the second half as the French keeper has failed to recover from a heavy challenge in the area just before half-time. There is worse to come minutes later when Nayef Aguerd deflects Garnacho’s speculative shot at the other end past Fabianski.
Hammers push up further to pick up the goal that will get them back in the game, and Jarrod Bowen is put though one on one against Onana, but as he prepares to finish, Diogo Dalot takes the ball off him with a superb sliding tackle.
West Ham continue to press high for the next 25 minutes, but the ‘Estate of Greed’ holds firm and then Phillips, who has come on for a knackered Souček is given a poor pass which he can’t shield, and Garnacho picks his pocket and runs through on goal to hit home Manchester United’s third.
The Hammers left on the pitch look at each other in disbelief And well they might. This is a game that they have controlled with shots, possession and a good attitude, but in the end have lost, thanks to a familiar paucity of belief at this ground that has regularly plagued them here in the league under the tutelage of (Sir) David Moyes.
23 Alphonse Areola, 2 Ben Johnson, 4 Kurt Zouma (captain), 5 Vladimir Coufal, 33 Emerson, 19 Edson Álvarez, 27 Nayef Aguerd, 7 James Ward-Prowse, 28 Tomas Souček, 20 Jarrod Bowen 14 Mohammed Kudus
Substitutes: 1 Lucasz Fabianski, 11 Kalvin Phillips, 17 Maxwel Cornet
