Second-half goals from Paul Pogba, Mason Greenwood and Marcus Rashford saw Manchester United come from behind to snatch all three points at London Stadium; David Moyes blames poor refereeing decision as West Ham collapse in front of 2,000 fans
Sunday 6 December 2020 11:30, UK
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer says it is no coincidence Manchester United keep performing on the road after they came from behind again to beat West Ham 3-1 on Saturday.
United's eight-game winning Premier League streak away from home was in jeopardy when Tomas Soucek's strike had given West Ham a deserved half-time lead at the London Stadium.
But, just as they did at Southampton last week, United's substitutes inspired a comeback, with the influential Bruno Fernandes having a hand in Paul Pogba, Mason Greenwood and Marcus Rashford's goals.
The comeback win was United's fifth from five on the road this season, and Solskjaer said it was just reward for his players' character and belief after their abject first-half display.
"When we got the goal and got on the front foot, we looked like ourselves," Solskjaer said. "We've done this too many times, coming back from 1-0 down, for it to be a coincidence.
"We have character and belief in this team, and the mentality is one of the biggest things I take from these away games.
"The players always believe in themselves and trust themselves, there is no shouting or screaming, we believe in our team-mates and ourselves."
Solskjaer praised another display of ruthless finishing from his players, adding: "Loads of things decided a game of football. In the first half we had loads of the ball, but we couldn't control it or create anything.
"Second half we tweaked a small couple of things tactically, made space bigger, more runs that created space for Bruno in the middle, and the quality of the finish, the three goals were all exceptional quality.
"That was the difference between us and them, they had chances in the first half, but they couldn't score, and the quality we had in the second half was too high."
West Ham manager David Moyes blamed a poor refereeing decision for his side's second-half collapse against his old club.
The Hammers boss insisted the ball had gone out of play by at least two yards in the build-up to Pogba's equaliser, when Manchester United goalkeeper Dean Henderson cleared upfield along the touchline.
"I probably had the best view in the house, the ball went over my head and I'm a couple of yards off the pitch," said Moyes.
"I'm disappointed the linesman didn't pick it up. He didn't make a decision on that at all. Maybe he was looking for an offside, but I would have said his first job was to check the ball hadn't gone out of play.
"The players' reaction tells you the ball was out. I certainly feel it had a big part to play in the game.
"We never regrouped and got ourselves correct and we need to put that right."
Soucek's strike had given West Ham a 1-0 lead at the break, but they could have been further ahead but for some dubious finishing.
Sebastien Haller was the chief culprit when he rounded Henderson, only to somehow stumble over his own feet instead of rolling the ball into an empty net.
"We had great opportunities to go 2-0 up, maybe more, but we didn't kill it off," Moyes added. "We didn't show a clinical edge to our finishing and that was costly for us tonight."
It meant the 2,000 West Ham fans inside the London Stadium, at the first Premier League match to have supporters present since March, went home disappointed.
Moyes said: "I thought the supporters were really good and I'm disappointed we couldn't give them the result to go with it, but they were noisy."
