New year new person? Not for Mike Dean, whose performance has again called into question the standard of officiating in the Premier League this season. The 48-year-old made two controversial decisions that directly benefitted Manchester United and ultimately cost West Ham the match, as Jose Mourinho’s side ran out 2-0 winners at the London Stadium on Monday evening.
Sofiane Feghouli was controversially shown a straight red card by Dean after just 15 minutes following a heavy tackle with United defender Phil Jones before he allowed United’s second to stand with 12 minutes remaining despite the fact three of their players, including Zlatan Ibrahimovic who scored the goal, were coming back from clear offside positions.
All in all, however, it was a poor game that lacked quality. Jose Mourinho admitted it was a poor performance from his side after the match but blamed that on the festive schedule that has seen them play twice in 48 hours. It is no surprise that in each of their last two matches their best play has come following the introduction of Juan Mata and Marcus Rashford.
Mata was introduced at the break as Mourinho rightly looked to inject some fresh legs into the final third, while Rashford followed him on less than 10 minutes later. Rashford was an immediate threat and instantly had the beating of West Ham’s right back Havard Nordtveit. In fact, it only took Rashford five minutes to accelerate beyond the West Ham defender, before calmly cutting back and passing into the path of Mata who finished first time from inside the box.
Andy Carroll was unleashed off the bench with more than 20 minutes remaining but Slaven Bilic’s decision to put him on in place of Dimitri Payet was a strange one, even if the Frenchman was not playing particularly well. Payet has created more chances than any other player in the Premier League this season (74) and is arguably one of the best crossers of a ball in the division. Unsurprisingly, Carroll didn’t even have half a chance in the time he was on the pitch.
Click here for more stats from United's 2-0 win over West Ham
Rashford almost carved open a second for Untied in identical fashion to the first but Pogba was unable to steer the ball into the far corner. However, the away side would have their second of the afternoon just four minutes later, although it shouldn’t have stood. Ander Herrera regained possession on the edge of the West Ham area and his intervention fell straight into the path of Ibrahimovic before he lashed him to open his account for 2017. The Sweden international has already scored more league goals for United than any other player since the start of last season (13). However, Ibrahimovic, like Pogba and Rashford, were all trotting back from an offside position when the ball fell to them.
It was frustrating for West Ham to take, who had actually started the match better than their opponents. They had more of the ball in the opening exchanges when playing with 11 men (51% possession) but that was immediately reversed when Feghouli was shown his marching orders - Dean has shown at least three more red cards than any other referee this season. For the remaining 30 minutes United completed three times as many passes than West Ham (248 vs 75) and Mourinho’s side should have been ahead only for Antonio Valencia and Jesse Lingard to both somehow miss from four yards out.
David De Gea was forced to make two good saves from distance to prevent West Ham from going in at the break ahead and the Spaniard was on hand to ensure United remained level after the break when Michail Antonio failed to convert a one-on-one situation on the hour mark. Antonio scored 15 league goals in 2016, but 11 of those were headers - five more than any other player - and it showed in his effort that was straight at an on-rushing De Gea.
Three minutes later and United were ahead and the game was all but over. Mourinho, who had taken Matteo Darmian off at half time and dropped Michael Carrick into the heart of the defence, immediately restored order in the wake of that goal bringing Chris Smalling on for Henrikh Mkhitaryan. Carrick was in control of proceedings from there on out - he completed more passes than any other player on the pitch (98).
Nevertheless, United are now on their best run of results since Sir Alex Ferguson left (13 matches unbeaten in all competitions). They are now one point off Arsenal in fourth and with Spurs and Chelsea to face off on Wednesday, they are guaranteed at least one of the sides directly above them to drop points.
