Coming in to this game the Hammers had enjoyed 2 wins and 2 draws after a thrashing to Manchester City on the opening day of the season. Manchester United had suffered a 3-1 defeat in the same fixture the previous season at the London Stadium that highlighted the cracks of Jose Mourinho’s tenure and this was to prove another difficult fixture, this time for Ole Solskjær.
Goals from Andriy Yarmolenko and Aaron Cresswell made it five matches without defeat for West Ham United as they climbed to 4th in the league on 11 points, sinking Manchester United to another defeat and piling pressure onto Solskjær, who had left key players out of his squad.
The first half was evenly poised between both teams, although West Ham didn’t have to play too well as Man Utd were lacklustre, until Felipe Anderson found Yarmolenko just inside the penalty area for a powerful strike into the bottom corner of the net.
With a spurned opportunity to equalise from Man Utd’s Juan Mata and Fabianski’s point blank save from Harry Maguire it was left to Cresswell to produce a stunning free kick from 25 yards to settle the score 6 minutes from time.
The home team had balance with Declan Rice in front of the back four with both Yarmolenko and Felipe Anderson a menace down the flanks, West Ham were in control and could sit deeper in the second half.
Man Utd away form was poor having drawn 4 and lost 3 of their previous 7 games in the Premier League, and the Hammers were able to take advantage of a lack of tempo and purpose from the visitors in the final third of the pitch. The Hammers sought to keep the door closed by any means necessary holding out for another clean sheet that had the fans singing ecstatically at the final whistle.
“We deserved the three points,” said Pellegrini, and nobody could argue with that. “I am happy with everything today. We didn’t allow them to create chances and it’s another clean sheet. We are very consistent.”
Hope you enjoy my series of photos looking back at previous games at the London Stadium until I can get back in to continuing recording the games again.
Be safe.
From the Stands 