You know what, forget the standard format of these reviews, I'm just gonna talk.
In South Africa, these mid-week games kick off at 22:00. They finish tomorrow. People in the Middle East, Asia, Australia are waking up in the middle of the night or just before work when looking at those down under.
All to watch this shite.
That's 2 hours of our lives wasted. Again!
I am someone who ALWAYS prefers good football over results. I believe that at Man Utd, if you play well, you will win more often than not. And when we play well, it means we as viewers and fans actually enjoy what we're seeing and it gives us more of a reason to stay up and watch these late games. Even if we don't win, you would've seen a side put in a display that you can get behind and give you hope for the future that we're actually going somewhere.
But if we don't play well, then we simply HAVE to win. At least then you'll say that 'we were poor but we managed to get the 3 points.'
At this moment, under this manager, with these players, we're doing neither. We don't play well nor do we win.
We always question everything Amorim does whether it be tactics, selections, substitutions (which was a BIG reason as to why we drew IMO), favouritism, not using youngsters, tinkering the team too much. There always seems to be something that is off.
I get that for this particular game he was handicapped with injuries and had to play certain players. Yoro was poor at Palace and deserved his substitution but with no De Ligt, surely you would say that he is the more 'senior' defender to Heaven and has been playing more regularly and that due to De Ligt's absence, I would trust you more than a teenager who's hardly played?
Heaven ended up being out of sorts as we saw with that early yellow. Despite it coming inside 10 minutes, no one could argue that it wasn't a booking. Amorim then took him off at halftime for Yoro anyway.
The rest of the team was fine but you then start to look at the performance.
West Ham were the better team for the first 25 minutes. They looked a lot more comfortable on the ball, moved it around well and just appeared hungrier especially for those second balls which Amorim used for his reasoning to make the changes he did: "We are losing because of the second balls. We have more men to put in the offense? Who? Who would be more offense?”
When United finally managed to get on the ball and keep things simple, we looked good. Amad was causing trouble down the right and we saw this with that chance where Aaron Wan-Bissaka cleared it off the line from a Zirkzee effort before Bruno's shot just clipped the post.
Yet we only saw that football for about 20 minutes.
The second half was not that much different to the first with the only real change being the goal. Dalot was having a decent game and scored at an important time (58 minutes) because it started to feel like the game was drifting.
Once we got that goal though, that's the point where you think that we should kick on and try to finish the game off.
Not only did we not kick on, we looked like we couldn't care less from that goal onwards. There was very little from United to suggest we were going to score more and indeed win the game at all because 1-0 is a dangerous score line even more so for one who's only kept one clean sheet this season.
The manager then took Dalot off after 68 minutes when he was having a good game (Dorgu came on for him and let me tell you, he didn't do anything to indicate it was the right change). That was followed by Zirkzee and Cunha coming off 10 minutes later with around 15-20 minutes to go. Mount and Ugarte were brought on which was met with much confusion as these were more defensive changes.
This suggested Amorim was going to try and hold on to his 1-goal lead and get the result in a more shut-up-shop manner. However, it's not as if West Ham were creating chance after chance and putting us under serious pressure. Even after Dalot's goal, they didn't really do anything. Making these defensive changes though, that put it into the Hammers' heads that maybe we should push further forward now that they've taken some attackers off.
But it was poor defending from a corner that proved to United's undoing. Nuno Santo's side were atrocious at crosses throughout game but all they needed was one ball to be on point and that could be enough. That was delivered in the 83rd minute as a flick-on at the near post by one of the shortest players on the field Jarrod Bowen had to be cleared off the line by Mazraoui. That clearance ended up at the feet of Soungoutou Magassa who put it in the net.
1-1 and not much time left. Everyone's thinking 'here we go again.'
One further change was made as Martinez came on for Shaw. This was the only correct substitution but was done far too late. Even in a short space of time though, the butcher did make a difference as he continuously looked to go forward which is not something we could've said for the rest of the team.
This change and what followed after that equalizer proved to be too late as United dropped 2 more points.
To pick up just 1 point from 6 at home to Everton and West Ham is sackable! This draw comes after a win at Palace who hadn't suffered defeat at Selhurst Park until we beat them.
We miss out on the chance to go into 5th and level on points with Chelsea and it seems that whenver the opportunity arises to move up the table, we let it slip.
I don't know what to say anymore lads. I really don't.
Wolves on Monday is another late kick off that will end the next day. I will be foolish enough to watch only to be disappointed (probably) and be asking all these questions yet again.
Fucking shit man.
Sorry no pictures in this post. I couldn't find any that were useful.
Man Utd draw 1-1 at home to West Ham | Image via Manchester United official X (@ManUtd)