United Lack Application on West Ham's Historic Night

On a raucous last night at the Boleyn Ground, what actually happened on the pitch between 8.30pm and 10.25pm was an appropriate send-off for West Ham United - but also for Louis van Gaal? 

The situation at Manchester United remains complicated, with chief executive Ed Woodward still not having made a firm decision on the managerial role for next season, but this 3-2 defeat in the penultimate game of the season offered so many reasons as to why this should be Van Gaal’s penultimate league game as manager. It was all there. 

Most of all, United were insipid when they should have been intense. Their prosaic passing could only produce a premium of shots, in a remarkably unambitious display. They were over-reliant on the feats of Anthony Martial and David De Gea, but then undone by the simplest of situations, and issues that could really have been addressed with the proper preparation. Most of all, on again going behind, they struggled to get back into it and that means they will need a big favour to overtake Manchester City in the top four. 

Overall, it just seems so unnecessary that they are in this position, and so much of that is down to the present manager. How else to explain, more than anything, the fact they had just three shots in a game they had to win in the Champions League chase league, and that involved such history. 

These clubs have had a fervent and sometime unsavoury rivalry, as the incidents before the game indicated, and just compare this to one of the most famous games from that rivalry. In the 1995 season climax at Upton Park, Alex Ferguson’s title-chasing United produced more shots in just one 13-second period at the end of the game, than they did in the entirety of the 90 minutes on Tuesday. 

The stakes might have been different, given that the side 21 years ago needed to win to take the title off Blackburn Rovers, but that still doesn’t explain the drastic difference in attacking. United were - again - just so ponderous. It took the typically emphatic intervention of Martial to shake them out of that, but only because David De Gea had earlier produced one of his customary unexpected saves by keeping out Andy Carroll’s admittedly underwhelming one-on-one. 

Yet, this was also the oddity of the performance. One of the main problems with Van Gaal’s regime has been that, because United are so minimalist and uninspiring in approach, they tend to have real trouble if they score the first goal. Prior to this match, after all, United had gone behind in 11 games and lost nine of them. They went behind here to Diafra Sakho’s goal, but this time for once came back - for the first proper time since the win over Southampton in September - only to succumb to another failing that is specific to this manager. 

United’s commitment to a slow passing game at the expense of other measures saw them give Dimitri Payet repeated chances to drive in crosses and, having hit eight key passes, it was little wonder that two of them were put past De Gea. There was also the fact that was fully deserved. 

Martial aside, United just didn’t play to the stakes or the occasion. West Ham did, taking 20 shots to United’s three. Their application on the night increased with the fervour of the crowd. “This was a win for character,” Slaven Bilic said. Those words should be as damning for Van Gaal as anything.

Is a top-4 finish now beyond Manchester United or will they leapfrog rivals Manchester City on the final day of the season? Let us know in the comments below