Manchester United fell to their 13th defeat of the season at West Ham as goals from Jarrod Bowen and Mohammed Kudus piled even more pressure on Erik ten Hag on Saturday.
You just know that there will be more ‘Manchester United in crisis’ conversations to be picked where we left off after the Reds were beaten by West Ham after two second half strikes at the London Stadium.
The result means Ten Hag’s struggle side, still without key players due to injury, has suffered eight defeats in the Premier League before Boxing Day. It says everything you need to know that it took United over half an hour to muster a shot on target after Antony’s effort was stopped by Alphonse Areola.
United are now sitting eight in the Premier League but we only have ourselves to blame, after winning just one in seven games across all competitions. It’s no wonder we are out of Europe, the Carabao Cup and the title race before it even starts.
A damning statistic I stumbled across at full-time showed that United have lost three of their last four matches and failed to score in any of them for the first time since 1992.
It is another bitter pill for Ten Hag to swallow as West Ham won 2-0 despite offering very little in the first half. United were the better team without creating enough clearcut chances and had comfortable phases throughout the game.
Player ratings after defeat to West Ham here.
However, our response to going behind is what worried me most.
Perhaps the worst stat of the day will be this is the highest number of losses the club has endured since 1930.
Our wretched season continues and it feels like Ten Hag is dragging on until he can get key players back from injury. The question I have is whether it’s just a matter of time before they return and become replaced by teammates in the treatment room?
With Diogo Dalot, Harry Maguire, Victor Lindelof and Raphael Varane all absent, 19-year-old Willy Kambwala made his United debut alongside Jonny Evans at centre-back.
The youngster performed well and can expect more opportunities in the team, even though the result didn’t go our way. It was also nice to see him give fellow youth team gradtuate Kobbie Mainoo an arm around the shoulder after his mistake for West Ham’s second goal.
At full-time it was no wonder that everyone in a United shirt looked dejected.
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