Manchester United v West Ham, Getty Images 04 December 2025, 23:56

A midweek tour for the English Premier League is not a very common occurrence, but it does happen a few times each season. This is especially relevant in the period near the Christmas and New Year holidays. And then there is no need to talk about the late match on Thursday according to the schedule, which actually takes place a day and a half before the start of the weekend games. In the context of the fourteenth round of the national championship, the mission to close the program of the next round was entrusted to Manchester United and London’s West Ham at Old Trafford.

Of course, in this duel it was impossible to pass by the figure of the “Iron” defender Aaron Wan-Bissaka, who delighted the audience in this legendary stadium in the “Red Devils” shirt relatively recently in his career. This time, the Englishman found himself on the other side of the barricades and, at least in the first half, made exactly the most touches to the ball and passes to someone else’s penalty area as part of the guests, and compared to the hosts, he also did not pass from behind.

Although, in general, the time before the break can be credited to the asset of Ruben Amorim’s team, which at the beginning was not too zealous in the attack and fought off the opponents’ attempts to escalate, but then Manchester United gradually woke up, and it was already getting hot in Areola’s penalty area. The keeper had his work cut out for him, and with Mbemo’s superb volley from the right, the French keeper got into the game for the first time.

And then the crazy Zirkze-Cunha-Bruno Fernandez moment was not long in coming, which made it three in the center of the foreign penalty area, but then even Van-Bissac cleared the ball from the goal line of his own team, while the Portuguese’s final point only forced the ball to lick the left frame of the goal. And we can also mention the exchange of blows between Bowen and Mazraoui, who additionally crushed the goalkeepers on both sides of the field shortly before the break.

In the second half, United tried to be more focused up front and got their way in the 58th minute. A wall on the right flank by Casemiro and Diallo ended with a cross to the center of the free-kick for Dalot, whose shot into the far corner was not covered by the defenders. And it seems that the mood of Amorim’s team was to go first and finish off the opponents with the second goal, but for some reason the “Red Devils” did not dare to do so, after which happened what always happens in such cases.

The Manchester club’s last-gasp attempt to dry up the game ultimately proved unsuccessful, so when Mazraoui, in first-half Van Bissaka fashion, cleared Bowen’s right-wing corner header off his own goal line in the 84th minute and Magassa curled the rebound into the net, there was only a shrug of the shoulders. Despite the attempts to return to the attack, Amorim’s team could not do anything to the opponents in this match.

Manchester United: Lammens — Dalot (Dorgu, 68), Geven (Yoro, 46), Shaw (Martinez, 88) — Diallo, Casemiro, B. Fernandes, Mazraoui — Mbemo, Cunha (Mount, 77) — Zirkze (Ugarte, 77).