AARON CRESSWELL sealed West Ham’s win with a stunning free-kick.

The left-back, recalled in place of the suspended Arthur Masuaku, curled a set-piece into the top corner from 25 yards to make it 2-0 with six minutes remaining.


It capped a miserable afternoon for the Red Devils who fell behind to Andriy Yarmolenko’s opener just before half-time – and then saw striker Marcus Rashford limp off with a suspected groin injury on the hour mark.

And with Anthony Martial injured and Mason Greenwood ill, Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is facing a striker crisis ahead of Wednesday’s Carabao Cup tie at home to Rochdale.

They will be pleased the tie is at Old Trafford as they have failed to win any of their three away matches in the Premier League this season.

The first half will rank as one of the poorest performances from the Red Devils in the modern era.

In fact it was an awful contest until Yarmolenko lit up the London Stadium in the 44th minute when he collected Felipe Anderson’s clever pass, cut inside Harry Maguire and slotted home.

Solskjaer sent his players back out from the interval early and they certainly improved after the break when Juan Mata went close to sliding in Andreas Pereira’s cross at the far post.

But the loss of Rashford – who pulled up lame in the area – was a blow.

And though Harry Maguire and sub Jesse Lingard both had efforts blocked, the Hammers got the second they deserved when Cresswell netted from a free-kick after Ashley Young had fouled Mark Noble, who was lucky to still be on the pitch after a dreadful tackle on Aaron Wan Bissaka, which only resulted in a yellow card from ref Anthony Taylor.




Source: Read Full Article