Payback time for Lingard and de Gea
At West Ham, two old favourites were playing a tune by John Lennon. And an even older favourite scored yet again – without quite dispelling the doubts
FIVE ASIDES Premier League: West Ham 1, United 2
There are certain songs that get played at football grounds, and others, just as singalong-friendly, that you never hear at all. Sometimes it’s left to the footballers to play a neglected tune. At the London Stadium, Jesse Lingard was joined by David de Gea for a silent rendition of John Lennon’s Instant Karma. Lingard, who had cost United a point in the Champions League on Tuesday with that feeble back-pass, repaid it with interest as he chose the perfect moment to make one of his occasional bids for Goal of the Month. For the second time this year, as Andy Mitten of UWS observed, West Ham was the place Lingard had gone to repair his confidence.
That gorgeous goal would still have been in vain had de Gea not given the tale an even better twist. David Moyes kindly lent a helping hand by summoning Mark Noble to take the penalty when he hadn’t even warmed up. (If Ole Gunnar Solskjaer had had a substitution left, would he have sent on Tom Heaton? You couldn’t have blamed him for thinking about it.) And then de Gea astonished us, and himself, by saving a penalty for the first time in 41 attempts – coolly, calmly, with the firmest of paws. If his karma wasn’t as instant as Lingard’s, it didn’t take long – it was in United’s second-last European tie, the Europa Cup final, that he conceded 11 pens and missed one. United paid a heavy penalty for that, but yesterday the penalty paid them back. Now we just need Aaron Wan-Bissaka to make up for his howler on Tuesday by finding the top corner from 30 yards out.
Cristiano Ronaldo: discuss. This game did little to dispel the feeling that he could be a mixed blessing. He keeps on scoring goals – four in nine days now, and every one of them either giving United the lead or dragging them level. At West Ham, he showed his technique with that airborne volley, keeping his balance, getting enough on it to force Lukasz Fabianski to hand it back to him. He’s the Jimmy Greaves of the 21st century and he’s doing what he was signed to do, making United foxier in the boxl. So what’s the problem? Well, have a look at who else has scored since he returned. First there was Bruno Fernandes, with a screamer against Newcastle that flew into the net trailing a message for his team-mates – ‘Don’t be intimidated by Cristiano, just do your own thing’. Then Lingard, with two beauties of different kinds – before the West Ham worldie there was an intricate team goal against Newcastle, crafted by Paul Pogba with help from Donny van de Beek and Anthony Martial. And that’s it. In this short story, the dog that didn’t bark in the night is the rest of the forward line. Nothing for Mason Greenwood (though his shot against Newcastle was an unacknowledged assist, getting Ronaldo going again), Martial or Jadon Sancho. With Ronaldo in the team, the wingers turn into wing-men. He’s not so much a centre forward, more a force field. At the London Stadium, he had three penalty appeals turned down: if he wasn’t so massively famous, might Martin Atkinson have given one of them?
Solskjaer’s use of subs, which often has us tearing our hair out, suddenly improved. Lingard was the right injection of energy at the right time, and it was brave to take Pogba off to make way for him (though Solskjaer may have been wary of exhausting him, after Pogna was the only player in the front six not subbed in Bern). Solskjaer has a strong sense of story, as anybody would if they’d been the last-gasp hero in a Champions League final, and he will have smelt that Lingard goal coming. What he might not have foreseen was the superb assist from Nemanja Matic, who could have replaced the ramshackle Fred a bit earlier. Matic found Lingard near the corner of the box with a ball that was quick, decisive and pointing straight forwards, like a headlight. It took out four defenders and couldn’t have been executed better if it had been played by Michael Carrick.
So United maintained their long unbeaten run on the road, in the league – now stretching to 30 games. But this season’s away wins are a bit different from last season’s. Now that the crowds are back, putting some wind in the sails of the home team, United are getting becalmed more often. Only one goal at Southampton, one at Wolves, two here: throw in Young Boys and United have scraped five goals in four away games, whereas at home they’ve rattled up nine in two. Normal service has very nearly resumed, and United will be doing well if their invincibility is still intact after they go to Leicester in October, let alone Chelsea in November. Their fixtures this season come in curious clumps, starting with seven medium-sized opponents. It felt as if United would need to collect 17-19 points from those games and they’re on course for that, with 13 from the first five. A year ago they took eight games to reach 13 points; the year before, they took ten. They’re getting better.
Rob Smyth’s minute-by-minute report on the game is here.