Manchester United were beaten by West Bromwich Albion 1-0 in the Premier League at Old Trafford on Sunday afternoon. It was an abject performance by Jose Mourinho’s side who were lacking a lot to break down and make the relegation-threatened side suffer. United lacked pace, ability and gifted the Baggies too much respect in the defeat, deservedly getting the result they got.
This meant that Manchester City were crowned the Premier League champions, a week after United cancelled their celebrations which were set to commence after the Manchester derby. United need to secure their second-place spot this season and missing the chance to raise their lead to four points ahead of Liverpool could be something they will regret in the coming weeks.
United played the 4-3-3 formation, which may have been too much at home, but was needed with the Baggies packing the midfield at times, also parking the bus to keep United at bay. The referee denied United a penalty in the first half after Ander Herrera was fouled in the box but he was too far out of the action to even see it, continuing the poor Premier League officiating this season.
That is not an excuse for United losing though, it was not down to missing the penalty, it was down to not being good enough on the day, despite having a week’s rest from their last match. The atmosphere at the Theatre of Dreams was poor. The supporters, if you can call them that, should really be ashamed. This is part and parcel of the problem.
There were calls at half-time on Twitter that Mourinho should take some midfield players off and replace them with attacking players. He did just that and despite Jesse Lingard nearly breaking the deadlock moments after coming on, the trio of attacking players did little to help United find what could have been a winner or even an equaliser. Anthony Martial and Marcus Rashford were both poor.
United will travel to Bournemouth on Wednesday, playing the match which should have been played this weekend with them playing Tottenham Hotspur in the Emirates FA Cup at Wembley. United will need to put a bit of space between them and Liverpool, or by the end of next weekend, Liverpool will be in second place once again.
Manchester United: De Gea; Valencia, Lindelof, Smalling, Young (Rashford 75′); Herrera (Lingard 46′), Matic, Pogba (Martial 58′); Mata, Lukaku, Sanchez
Substitutes Not Used: Pereira; Jones, Rojo; McTominay
Bookings: Paul Pogba 29′