Manchester United beat West Ham United 1-0 in the Emirates FA Cup on Tuesday evening. It took extra time for United to find the after the Hammers seemingly played for a point in a game that would never see it happen. To play this defensive in a cup match was poor. Victor Lindelof had the best chance of normal time seeing Lukasz Fabianski save his effort in the first half. Mason Greenwood played well and Marcus Rashford missed an easy effort once again, seemingly needing to make things simple again. Scott McTominay opened the scoring seven minutes into the first half of extra time. United will find out who they face in the quarter-final draw which will take place on Thursday evening.
It was a pretty uneventful first half for United against the Hammers. United had the majority of the ball (69.4%). United had eight shots on goal, just one of those on target which was from Victor Lindelof and saved by Fabianski. Mason Greenwood looked in the tone at times, as did Alex Telles, who played well in his first appearance for a while. If United were to make it to the quarter-final of the FA Cup this season, they would need to find some improvement. I felt that the Hammers were playing the game to win a point, which was never going to happen, this being a knockout cup competition. Perhaps the second half would show a better brand and style of football from both teams?
At the start of the second half, United started well but found the Hammers defending well and in numbers. Minutes later, West Ham started to break forward and seemed to be showing the right signs and were asking questions of this United side. Solskjaer will need to make a change or too soon to give United a chance to get something from this match. United made a double substitution in the 73rd minute of the match with Bruno Fernandes and Scott McTominay replacing Donny van de Beek and Nemanja Matic. Edinson Cavani then replaced Mason Greenwood. It was a dire second half, worse than the first half. United had five more shots, one of which was on target. They ended the 90 minutes with 64% possession and entered extra time.
At the start of extra time, Solskjaer made another double substitution with Brandon Williams and Luke Shaw replacing Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Alex Telles. United took the lead with the first goal of the game in the 97th minute of the match. Anthony Martial led the counter before Fred found the ball on the overlap. His lofted cross was deflected away to Marcus Rashford who laid the ball off to Scott McTominay, whose run was almost perfect to the edge of the box, burying his shot inside the near post. It is a shame that it took this long for a goal to be score. Many will praise the Hammers, whose zero shots on target to this point showed how much they wanted to win this match.
[player_ratings id=”111664″]
Goals: Scott McTominay 97′
Assists: Marcus Rashford 97′
Manchester United: Henderson; Wan-Bissaka (Williams 90′), Lindelof, Maguire, Telles (Shaw 90′); Matic (McTominay 73′), Fred; Greenwood (Cavani 86′), Van de Beek (Fernandes 73′), Rashford; Martial
Substitutes Not Used: Grant; Tuanzebe; Diallo, James
Bookings: N/A
Written by John Walker
