West Ham 2-1 Man United: Blunt Red Devils fall to controversial defeat after Jarrod Bowen scores stoppage-time penalty following more VAR drama to pile pressure on Erik ten Hag

The clocks may change but Manchester United remains the same. If there’s anything to be said about this dilapidated team led by Erik ten Hag, it’s their ability to find imaginative new ways to arrive a day late and a dollar less.

Of course, there will be mitigations. There will be howls of injustice. Because with Ten Hag there’s always an excuse and here, at the home of one of the Premier League’s least impressive teams, they could at least get a decent one.

The penalty with which they were defeated by West Ham was a farce and a distillation of football in the era of VAR, where the whims of a frozen image can override all sense of reason.

In this case, that meant that a foul was detected against Matthijs de Ligt for contact with Danny Ings that was unavoidable.

The area was packed and the foul was so slight (if it existed at all) that one can’t help but wonder how the VAR, Michael Oliver, concluded that a clear and obvious error had been made by referee David Coote. The fact that it took Oliver two minutes to detect it says everything that needs to be said.

But let’s not be too generous in attributing this American loss to the mistakes of others. Let’s avoid the temptation to put it all down to the events leading up to Jarrod Bowen’s 90th-minute penalty.

No, it was as much about United’s shortcomings. This was a team that had enough chance to win five games but instead left London with a fourth league defeat of the season.

This was based on their own incompetence in the box, summed up by a missed open goal by Diogo Dalot and a parallel narrative in the first half that revolved around one question: how could West Ham spend so much money in the summer and still look good? so cheap?

If this is the end for Ten Hag, at a time when his superiors are once again holding beauty pageants elsewhere, then the profligacy on his side was as responsible as the busybodies at Stockley Park.

In the end it was the Ten Hag players who left this game hanging in the balance long enough for a steal to occur. It was their inability to put the game away long before Crysencio Summerville put West Ham ahead and it was their inability to rebuild once Casemiro brought them back level.

If Ten Hag is to be credited, he admitted it. Secondly, this was not one of those incoherent performances that have shaped vast swaths of his tenure.

He made three changes to the XI that attracted Fenerbahce, meaning it was pretty much the same team that looked quite impressive in the second half of the win at Brentford. Much of that worked: Manuel Ugarte was unlucky to lose his place to Casemiro, having done well in Turkey, but Casemiro was strong for more reasons than his goal. Along with Bruno Fernandes, he was perhaps United’s best player.

But it was a convincing effort: with Rasmus Hojlund starting, Ten Hag predicted the strength would increase and it did not, despite West Ham’s apparent desire to help them.

In fact, Julen Lopetegui spent most of the afternoon in a state of exasperation. He made four changes to the team crushed by Tottenham, but if the hope was something of urgency or pride, then the first half was a spectacular failure.

Two minutes later, Guido Rodríguez gave the ball away, which culminated in Alejandro Garnacho hitting the crossbar, and a moment later Maximilian Kilman went unpunished for a careless pass.

Those errors set the tone, as did the misadventures of Aaron Wan-Bissaka, whose attacks from right-back are always fun to watch but repeatedly left space to be attacked behind him.

That’s very much the way West Ham operate these days: whether the signings were Lopetegui’s idea, like that of the feisty Guido Rodriguez, or were parachuted in by sporting director Tim Steidten, much of what we see of them It is dysfunctional. It was reflected in how much United were allowed to create.

Garnacho, after hitting the frame, quickly had another excellent chance which went wide after Edson Alvarez was caught out of position, and Fernandes missed a free header from 10 yards when Konstantinos Mavropanos failed in his efforts to catch him offside. .

The group’s biggest chance fell to Dalot, who broke loose with a beautiful ball from Fernandes over the top. Unmarked, the Portuguese defender took care of the difficult part by beating Lukasz Fabianski, but misjudged the rebound and missed the shot.

At that point a statistic circulated: of the 26 big chances created this season, United have wasted 22 of them. Added to the list is a header from Casemiro after a delivery from Christian Eriksen, although it was more of a good save from Fabianski. Just in case, Álvarez also headed against his own bar.

Garnacho volleyed into the side netting at the start of the second half, but by then West Ham were already creating their own pressure. That was demonstrated when Emerson missed his connection from five yards after a ball in front of Antonio’s goal and was underlined when Summerville began the assault.

None of it was pretty – that is, it was due to a 74th-minute chipped shot by Ings after a low cross from Bowen – but West Ham’s good luck came when the loose ball found Summerville at the far post.

Having been deprived of playing time this season by Lopetegui, he deserved his luck and, on a related note, they played much better with him on the field. To give the manager his due, both that substitution and the introduction of Ings had an impact.

But United was still able to come back and Casemiro scored the equalizer in the 81st minute.

A 1-1 draw was the least they deserved. But this is United and when it rains, it pours. The penalty felt unfair. And yet, the Ten Hag players allowed such a danger to exist, and it happens too often to be considered an accident.