Manchester United’s winning streak has come to an end after four games, but they remain unbeaten under Michael Carrick following tonight’s draw.
The Red Devils were made to work until the very dying embers of their clash with West Ham to rescue a point, though United have every right to feel aggrieved that Casemiro’s initial leveller didn’t stand.
Casemiro was this close to equalising for Man United against West Ham 🤯📏 pic.twitter.com/jhxUF7exSR
— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) February 10, 2026
It was one of the tightest offside calls you’ll see this season, yet even the Brazilian was braced for it being ruled out as soon as his header hit the back of the net.
Benjamin Sesko bags sixth Premier League goal
Thankfully, Benjamin Sesko had the exact impact Carrick desired when bringing him off the bench, as the Slovenian international scored a truly tremendous goal in injury time to make it 1-1 with seconds left to play.
BENJAMIN SESKO, TAKE A BOW 💫
WHAT A FINISH!@tntsports & @discoveryplusUK pic.twitter.com/dgdZSVlvgn
— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) February 10, 2026
Reacting to the equaliser on TNT Sports, Ally McCoist branded Sesko’s finish as ‘astonishing’, to which fellow commentator Darren Fletcher responded: “That’s as good as anything you’ll see tonight.”
Over on X/Twitter, Laurie Whitwell echoed the sentiment, saying: “Outrageous finish from Sesko. Angle looked impossible.
“Finally, United [are] getting the ball wide + crossing.”
Reds throw away chance to strengthen standing in top-four race
The fact that Chelsea also drew with Leeds United earlier in the night means the Reds haven’t felt too much of an impact from dropping points, although it was a squandered opportunity to capitalise on other results.
In line with that, it opens the door for Liverpool to close the gap to United to just three points if they win tomorrow. However, they are away at the Stadium of Light, where Sunderland have yet to taste defeat in the Premier League this campaign.
Next up for United is a maiden visit to the Hill Dickinson Stadium to face Everton, who sustained a 2-1 loss to Bournemouth tonight and had key defender Jake O’Brien shown a straight red.
I was frustrated and perplexed by this game. About a minute or so before West Ham’s opener, I said to myself that it looked like we were back under late Ten Hag or Amorim – tentative, slow, risk-averse, formulaic and easy to predict.
Although we had more possession, it wasn’t as if the Hammers just gave us the ball and always sat back in a low block – they made plenty of moves. But we were often too slow to break or make use of the fleeting spaces that WH occasionally left open and missed opportuities to make use of some wide switches. Under ETH or Amorim I often said to myself “come on, who’s making the run?” while we fruitlessly passed around the back. We were often back there tonight.
WH did defend well – their work rate was excellent and they tracked back into their defensive shape very well. They pressed well, too, so credit to them.
The WH goal involved three consecutive defensive errors, but go easy on the defenders – it takes a whole team – and it looked to me like lack of communication (or drill) was central to two of those errors.
After the WH goal, we increased the tempo and intensity and immediately looked better. We should have showed much more of that from the off. I was perplexed that we missed opportunities to play the ball into dangerous areas at times or to put the ball into the box for a header or on the chance the second ball would drop nicely. We have to create those chances and can’t always leave it to Bruno.
Sesko’s goal was an amazing show of skill and congratulations to him. He got in front of his defender and took a chance – there should have been more of that.
While Carrick may be popular with the players (not that it’s a bad thing) and seems to be fairly competent so far – including starter selection and subs – I have wondered if performances would fade over time. This is not just because of the end of “new manager bounce” but more because I thought that recent performances might have been due to a combination of (apparently) stricter training and management by Amorim and more flexible game tactics (with square-pegs-in-square-holes team selection) by Carrick that released player creativity … but that the team still recalls, and partly behaves via, the strictness of Amorim. Perhaps Man Utd need a “good cop, bad cop” (or “strict coach, fun coach”) arrangement in training to consistently perform at their best in matches.
Oh, and I should add, that while there’s been mention of relational play (as opposed to positional play) that Man Utd has been employing under Carrick – it’s a favourite topic of mine and I really like that style – it looked like West Ham were countering us fairly well in that department. We seemed to use that tactic less in this match but when Man Utd did flood an area to create an overload, often WH would also flood the area to neutralise the advantage – WH seemed to bog-down our progress in midfield that way without necessarily winning the ball.