Yesterday Man United travelled down to West Ham. Over recent seasons Upton Park has been a place where many points have been dropped and it wasn’t the best time to visit as we have many defensive injuries. Man United had only won three out of the last 11 matches against West Ham at Upton Park.
Nemanja Vidic wasn’t feeling very well so he wasn’t in the squad but Luis Nani was for the first time in ages.
Man United starting XI- Tomasz Kuszczak, Darren Fletcher, Gary Neville, Wes Brown, Patrice Evra, Antonio Valencia, Anderson, Darron Gibson, Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs and Wayne Rooney.
Ryan Giggs didn’t get off to the best of starts, his sloppy backpass nearly let in Jack Collison. Giggs passed the ball back to Darren Fletcher in the penalty area, instead the ball went to Zavon Hines, and his shot was off target. Giggs made up for his earlier error by touching the ball onto Collison and luckily it went for a goalkick.
Due to defensive injury problems, Fletcher was playing at right back for Man United, things got worse when Neville pulled up with an injury. He had to be replaced in the central defence by midfielder Michael Carrick.
A lovely ball in by Gibson almost put Rooney through but Robert Green came out and beat Rooney too it.
Just before half time, Man United finally piled on some real pressure onto West Ham and we got what we wanted. Giggs put the ball into the penalty area, Danny Gabbidon headed the ball away, Scholes picked it up and with a touch he smashed it into the net. Exactly 45 minutes on the clock had gone and it was the perfect time to get a goal.
Second half and West Ham should have equalised. Guillermo Franco put the ball into Man United’s penalty area, Junior Stanislas hesitated but if he didn’t he would have been able to knock that into the back of the net.
Man United’s reply to that was to go down the other end and go 2-0 up. Rooney played the ball to Giggs, he ran at West Ham’s defence and laid the ball off to Gibson. Gibson hit the ball with his first touch and the ball flew into the top right corner of the goal. It was the third goal outside the penalty area Gibson has scored in two matches.
The Hammers went close to pulling one back through a Alessandro Diamanti freekick, he aimed for the top corner but Kuszczak knocked the ball away for a corner.
Some wonderful play by Man United almost got Evra a goal. In the middle of West Ham’s half Evra passed to Anderson, he got the ball to Rooney and he played in Evra. Evra ran into the penalty area and the ball fizzled wide of the post.
Man United’s third came from some more good play by United. Halfway inside West Ham’s half Giggs played the ball to Rooney, who was just outside the penalty area. Rooney passed to Anderson who was on the left side of the area and his ball in was tapped in by Valencia.
Minutes later, Man United bagged themselves their fourth and final goal. Carrick cut out a West Ham ball, Scholes then picked it up and played the ball to Rooney who was in West Ham’s half, he then passed to substitute Dimitar Berbatov. Berbatov then played the ball to Valencia and his ball into the area was knocked in by Rooney.
Defensive injuries went from bad to worse before fulltime, Man United had made all three substitutions and Brown had to come off. So we had midfielder Fletcher playing at right back, midfielder Carrick and defender Evra playing in central defence and Giggs playing at left back.
Next up is an important Champions League game against Wolfsburg out in Germany on Tuesday. Vidic should be back but I don’t think Brown, Neville, John O’Shea, Rio Ferdinand, Jonny Evans, Rafael da Silva or Fabio da Silva will have recovered by then.
Later on in the day Chelsea kicked off against Manchester City. Our City rivals did us a favour by beating them 2-1, which means we are now only two points behind Chelsea.
