Manchester U 4 West Ham 0

Man­chester Uni­ted 4 West Ham 0 Uni­ted, Old Traf­ford, Eng­lish Pre­mier Lea­gue, Au­gust 13, 2017. Man­chester Uni­ted opened the 2017-18 Pre­miership cam­paign wi­th a com­mand­ing 4-0 win over West Ham Uni­ted cour­tesy of a double from Ro­melu Lu­kaku each si­de of the break and a goal apiece by An­thony Mar­tial and Paul Po­gba late in the sec­ond half.

Fol­low­ing a clo­se 2–1 UEFA Su­per Cup loss to reign­ing UEFA Cham­pi­ons Lea­gue Cham­pi­ons Re­al Mad­rid at the Philip the Sec­ond Arena in the Mace­do­ni­an cap­it­al of Skopje, Man­chester Uni­ted played West Ham Uni­ted at Old Traf­ford in their Pre­mier Lea­gue open­ing tie.  The Man­chester Uni­ted Fir­st Te­am Squad for the 2017-18 sea­son con­tained goal­keep­ers Da­vid de Gea, Joel Pe­reira, and Ser­gio Rom­ero; de­fenders Eric Bailly, Da­ley Bli­nd, Camer­on Borth­wick-Jack­son, Mat­teo Dar­mian, Phil Jones, Vic­tor Lin­delof, Mar­cos Rojo, Lu­ke Shaw, Chris Small­ing, An­tonio Va­lencia, and Ash­ley Young; mid­field­ers An­der Her­rera, Mi­chael Car­rick, Mar­ou­ane Fel­laini, An­gel Go­mes, Eth­an Ham­ilton, Jesse Lin­gard, Ju­an Ma­ta, Ne­manja Mat­ic, Scott Mc­Tom­inay, and Paul Po­gba; and for­wards Ro­melu Lu­kaku, An­thony Mar­tial, Mar­cus Rash­ford, Alex­is San­chez, and Ja­mes Wil­son. West Ham United´s Fir­st Te­am Squad, mean­while, in­cluded goal­keep­ers Ad­ri­an, Joe Hart, and Nat­han Trott; de­fenders Sam Byram, Ja­mes Collins, Aar­on Cress­well, Pat­rice Ev­ra, Ben John­son, Ar­thur Masuaku, Vas­hon Neufville, An­gelo Og­bonna, Joshua Pask, Win­ston Re­id, De­clan Rice, and Pablo Za­baleta; mid­field­ers Mi­chail An­tonio, Mar­cus Browne, Joshua Cul­len, Grady Di­an­gana, Domin­gos Quina, Edi­milson Fer­nandes, Sead Haksaban­ovic, Jooo Mario, Cheik­hou Kouyate, Manuel Lan­zini, Ma­rk Noble, and Pedro Obi­ang; and for­wards Marko Ar­nautovic, Andy Car­roll, Javi­er Her­nandez, Nat­han Hol­land, and Jor­dan Hugill.

Foot­ball Lea­gue Cup and UEFA Eu­ropa Lea­gue win­ners Man­chester Uni­ted had de­feated LA Galaxy, Re­al Salt Lake, Man­chester City, VIF Oslo, and Samp­dor­ia, drawn wi­th Re­al Mad­rid, and lost ag­ainst FC Bar­celona in their pre-sea­son mat­ches ahead of the Su­per Cup fix­ture ag­ainst Re­al Mad­rid, where­as West Ham had de­feated Ful­ham and Da­gen­ham and Red­bridge, drawn wi­th Sturm Graz, Wer­der Bre­men, and Alton­aer FC von 1893, and lost ag­ainst Wer­der Bre­men and Man­chester City in their sum­mer friend­lies. In the last meet­ing be­tween Man­chester Uni­ted and West Ham at Old Traf­ford, Jose Mourinho´s men had trashed The Irons by the con­vin­cing mar­gin of 4-1 in the Lea­gue Cup Quart­er Fi­nals on the 30th of Nov­ember 2016. The Man­chester club took the ad­vant­age thro­ugh Zlatan Ibrahimovic in the sec­ond min­ute, but Ash­ley Fletch­er ma­naged to level the score for West Ham ten min­utes ahead of the break. Af­ter the re­start, An­thony Mar­tial net­ted in the 48th and 62nd min­utes re­spect­ively be­fore Ibrahimovic sco­red a fourth goal in stop­page time.

On the open­ing week­end the 2017-18 Pre­miership cam­paign, Man­chester Uni­ted es­tab­lished a one-nil lead three min­utes pa­st the ha­lf-hour ma­rk when Ro­melu Lu­kaku re­cieved an in­tel­li­gent pass from Mar­cus Rash­ford and struck the ball pa­st West Ham shot stop­per Joe Hart and in­to the net via the in­side of the post to be­come the eight­eenth play­er to score on his Pre­mier Lea­gue de­but for The Red Dev­ils. And the new ac­quis­i­tion from Ever­ton fou­nd the back of the net ag­ain as the in­dus­tri­ous centre-for­ward head­ed ho­me an ex­cel­lently de­livered free-kick from Ar­meni­an mid­field play­maker Hen­rikh Mkhitary­an in the 52nd min­ute of pro­ceed­ings, whi­le Rash­ford came clo­se to scor­ing for the ho­me si­de when his ef­fort hit the foot of the up­right thir­teen min­utes la­ter. And then, in the 70th min­ute of ac­tion, Man­chester Uni­ted and Neth­er­lands mid­fielder Da­ley Bli­nd al­most made the score­sheet when his angled vol­ley went just a few in­ches in­ches over the cross­bar. But as the score­board clock at Old Traf­ford wound down to­wards the end of the sec­ond ha­lf, An­thony Mar­tial re­gistered a third goal for Uni­ted af­ter 87 min­utes of play wi­th a well pla­ced fin­ish from in­side the eight­een-yard area be­fore fel­low French­man Paul Po­gba ad­ded a fourth for the hosts when he un­leashed a fe­ro­cious shot pa­st Hart and in­to the net in the fi­nal min­ute of the sea­son open­er. Af­ter net­ting twice ag­ainst The Ham­mers, Lu­kaku had now sco­red on his Lea­gue de­buts for An­der­lecht, West Brom­wich Al­bion, Ever­ton, and Man­chester Uni­ted, and the twenty-four-year-old stri­ker al­ready look­ed settled in his new surroundings.

An ag­gress­ive and de­term­ined marks­man, Ro­melu Lu­kaku had star­ted his goal scor­ing ca­reer wi­th An­der­lecht of Brus­sels for whom the An­t­werp born play­er ac­cu­mu­lated an im­press­ive 33 Bel­gian Pro Lea­gue goals dur­ing 73 ap­pear­ances for The Purple and White un­der Con­stant Vanden Stock Sta­dium man­ager Ar­i­el Jac­obs be­fore he was sold to Ro­man Abramovich´s Chel­sea for an es­tim­ated trans­fer fee of £10 mil­lion on the 18th of Au­gust 2011. Af­ter loan spells wi­th West Brom­wich and Ever­ton, he sig­ned a per­man­ent deal wi­th the lat­ter at the be­gin­ning of the 2014-15 cam­paign and stayed wi­th the club un­til he joi­ned Man­chester Uni­ted in the sum­mer of 2017 for a fee re­por­ted to be some­where in the re­gion of ar­ound £75 mil­lion. A Bel­gi­um in­ter­na­tion­al, Lu­kaku made his seni­or de­but for The Red Dev­ils in a 1–0 friendly loss to Croa­tia at the King Baudouin Sta­dium on the 3rd of Mar­ch 2010, and sco­red his fir­st two goals for his na­tive coun­try in a 2–0 friendly tri­umph over Rus­sia at the Trade Uni­ons Cent­ral Sta­dium on the 17th of Nov­ember the same year. Man­chester Uni­ted Te­am: Da­vid de Gea, Eric Bailly, Da­ley Bli­nd, Phil Jones, An­tonio Va­lencia, Ne­manja Mat­ic, Hen­rikh Mkhitary­an, Ju­an Ma­ta, Ro­melu Lu­kaku, Paul Po­gba, Mar­cus Rash­ford. Sub­stitutes: Mat­teo Dar­mian, Chris Small­ing, An­thony Mar­tial, An­der Her­rera, Mar­ou­ane Fel­laini, Jesse Lin­gard, Ser­gio Rom­ero. West Ham Uni­ted Te­am: Joe Hart, Ar­thur Masuaku, An­gelo Og­bonna, Pablo Za­baleta, Win­ston Re­id, Edi­milson Fer­nandes, Ma­rk Noble, Pedro Obi­ang, An­dre Ayew, Marko Ar­nautovic, Javi­er Her­nandez. Sub­stitutes: Jose Fonte, Aar­on Cress­well, Ja­mes Mi­chael Collins, Sam Byram, De­clan Rice, Di­afra Sakho, Ad­ri­an San Mi­guel del Castillo.

Manchester United Quickfacts

Man­chester Uni­ted be­at West Ham Uni­ted 4-2 in a Fir­st Di­vi­sion fix­ture at Old Traf­ford on the 18th of Septem­ber 1971. The Reds took the lead thanks to a clo­se ran­ge head­er from Ge­orge Best, on­ly for The Irons to equal­ise thro­ugh Clyde Best who head­ed ho­me shortly af­ter­wards. Man­chester Uni­ted re­gained their ad­vant­age when Ge­orge Best sco­red wi­th an ac­ro­bat­ic shot two min­utes ahead of the break, but West Ham lev­elled the score ag­ain as Tre­vor Brook­ing power­ed a low ef­fort pa­st ho­me goal­keeper Al­ex Step­ney and in­to the net. Man­chester Uni­ted then took the lead for the third time wi­th an ac­cur­ate shot from Bob­by Charl­ton be­fore Ge­orge Best ad­ded a fourth goal for the hosts af­ter an amaz­ing in­di­vidu­al display.

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