DUTCH COURAGE
West Ham 2 Manchester United 0
Nayef Aguerd is out of the starting line-up, so there is more pressure for Mavropanos to start proving that he is good enough to one day be first choice in this position.
The area around the tunnel is besieged by hundreds of staff employed by Man U TV, a channel obsessed with repeats of former glories, presumably put out the channel in the hope of invoking the ghost of Bobby Charlton into the boots of any one of its regularly rotated forward line members.
The Manchester manager, Claude Den Haag, has the appearance of a chain smoking villain from a 70s episode of Van de Valk. His lower jaw has twisted over his tenure at the club into conveying a permanent scowl. This is manufactured in the unlikely hope of dissuading enthusiastic young journalists from asking questions of his tenure. The only question likely to stump him, however, would be the last time he smiled.
A 0-3 home reverse to Bournemouth and elimination from the Champions League are testimony to the ‘difficulties’ the club are having. That and not wanting to lose for a second successive year to a club successfully managed by a manager they sacked before he could even get his feet under the table.
West Ham, however, have conceded ten goals in their last two away games, so no one would think less of the Manchester folk for believing today might be their day for an unexpected victory in London.
The Hammers spend most of the first half letting Man United come at them, Garnacho only able to invoke the ghost of Charlie Chaplin as he fails twice to convert decent chances that he is put through to dispatch. As the half develops, West Ham begin to break with speed and efficiency, Kudus almost managing to finish off a neat four man move. By the time the half is over, it is the visitors who will be most pleased to go in level.
The second half sees a Hammers’ side emboldened by the touches of Paquetá and the intuition of his target men in Bowen and Kudus. Bowen is the first to benefit from the neat one touch football, finishing beautifully from Mavropanos’ through ball past Onana. Just six minutes later, Kudus hits a second with a fierce shot from just outside the area.
It’s all a bit of a predictable outcome, but a nonetheless joyous one just a couple of days before Christmas, and that cornucopia of smartly red-dressed Manchester employees have all departed the ground within a few minutes of the referee’s final whistle.
23 Alphonse Ariola, 5 Vladimir Coufal, 33 Emerson, 4 Kurt Zouma (captain), 19 Edson Álvarez, 14 Konstantinos Mavropanos, 7 James Ward-Prowse, 10 Lucas Paquetá, 28 Tomas Souček, 14 Mohammed Kudus, 20 Jarrod Bowen
Substitutes: 2 Ben Johnson, 8 Pablo Fornals
Goalscorers: Jarrod Bowen, Mohammed Kudus
