Man United account for ten-man West Ham

Man United moved within a point of the Premier League’s top four with a 2-0 win over West Ham at London Stadium.

A red card for the Hammers’ Sofiane Feghouli after 15 minutes gave United the upperhand for almost the entirety of the game.

And that man advantage paid dividends in the second period as first Juan Mata and then Zlatan Ibrahimovic broke the West Ham rearguard.

The wins sees United move level on points with Spurs in sixth, with Arenal just a point ahead of both in the Champions League-qualifying spots. West Ham sit 13^th in the table.

The Hammers started extremely brightly against their illustrious opponents with Dimitri Payet teeing up Manuel Lanzini in acres of space to lash an effort on goal from 20 yards, which David de Gea was forced to tip over.

But there was controversy at the London Stadium after just a quarter of an hour. Feghouli collected the ball in a good position on the edge of the box, but a poor touch saw the ball run away from him. In an attempt to retrieve the Algerian lunged for the ball at the same moment as Phil Jones tried to clear, with both players clashing and referee Mike Dean showing a straight red to the attacker; it seemed a very harsh decision, with the challenge badly timed but far from malicious or overly dangerous.

Despite the man advantage it took until the 35^th minute for United to create their first chance of note. When they did they should have scored. Henrikh Mkhitaryan got down the left and centred for Antonio Valencia to stroke home, with Ireland keeper Darren Randolph scrambling a save, which fell to Jesse Lingaard, who incredibly hit the post from all of a yard out.

Moments later Ibrahimvovic had a chance to break the deadlock. Mkhitaryan sprayed a ball over the top to the Swede, who could only manage to half-volley over the bar, when he should have scored.

West Ham had a chance of their own to break the deadlock when Lanzini found himself in possession on the edge of the box, beat two men, turned and hammered a shot towards the top-right corner to force a one-handed diving save from De Gea.

Jose Mourinho brought Mata into the fray for Matteo Darmian at the interval, moving from a 4-3-3 to a 3-4-3 formation and the Hammers almost took advantage of that change as Michail Antonio rose to head towards goal from a Payet free-kick with Marcos Rojo doing just enough to put off the attacker as he skewed his shot wide.

And Antonio should have scored on the hour mark as he was played in on goal by Lanzini, but one-on-one with the keeper a poor effort was too close to De Gea andsaw the Spaniard parry away.

With that miss the game turned. United broke downfield with substitute Marcus Rashford – on for Jesse Lindgard - reaching the byline before crossing for another subsitute Mata to stroke home from six yards out.

With the goal in bag, Mourinho proceeded to call Mkhitarayan ashore for Chris Smalling and revert back to a 4-3-3 formation.

Rashford almost created a second in a very similar move. He burst down the left once more, picking out Paul Pogba with a similar pull back, only for the Frenchman to push his effort wide of the foot of the right post.

Rashford had become the focus of attack and went close himself with a riffled shot from inside the area, which Randolph initially saved, before seeing the ball slip through his gloves and hit the post, before the goalkeeper gratefully collected for a second time.

The second goal for United was to arrive not long later. A poor clearance from Obiang fell to Herrera to feed to Ibrahimovic to stab home from close range; the goal was given but in truth the Swede – and two other United players – were offside and the goal shouldn’t have counted.

The win marks United's sixth in a row in the league and seventh in total as their red-hot streak continues.

Photo: Getty/Ian Walton

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