West Bromwich Albion 2-2 Manchester United: Premier League – as it happened

http://www.theguardian.com/football/live/2014/oct/20/west-bromwich-albion-manchester-united-live

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10.07pm BST22:07

If Manchester United could ever be encouraged by a draw at West Brom secured by an 87th-minute goal having twice fallen behind and despite having a paper-thin defence that habitually stands way too far from its own goal, this was perhaps it. They got themselves some serious momentum at times, demonstrated some admirable bouncebackability, and massively dominated all but the most important of statistical metrics (the scoreline, obviously). Their midfield was good, particularly after Fellaini came on and before Di Maria went off, but there are problems both in defence and in attack, where Van Persie didn’t do very much. Chelsea and Manchester City might show up their deficiencies even more starkly. Still, small steps and all that.

While I’m here, Sky eked a cluster of cliches out of Berahino after the final whistle. Just as well he is, as he points out, letting his football do the talking: “I thought we did really well to get the second goal. We’re just disappointed to have conceded. I felt like if I could stay focused, when the chance came I’d back myself to take it. I’m just enjoying my football, I’m letting my football do the talking, and I’m delighted to be contributing to the team.”

Finally, here’s a little challenge to amateur lip-readers out there. Sadly we don’t know who he was muttering about. Bye!

9.51pm BST21:51

Final score: West Bromwich Albion 2-2 Manchester United

The final whistle sounds, and an excellently entertaining draw it is.

9.50pm BST21:50

90+4 mins: Brilliantly tricksy hold-up play from Berahino, and when he finds Sessegnon Rojo kicks him and earns a booking.

9.49pm BST21:49

90+3 mins: United want to win this. They cross from the right, from the left, and from the right again, but there’s always a Baggie body in the way of things.

9.48pm BST21:48

90+2 mins: I fear that goal can only ensmall West Brom.

@Simon_Burnton On the international feed, Jim Beglin just said that this result could "embiggen" West Brom. #cromulentcommentary

Updated at 9.48pm BST

9.47pm BST21:47

90+1 mins: We’re into the first of four minutes of stoppage time, and Ashley Young’s corner is headed into the mixer and hooked weakly goalwards by Fellaini. Myhill holds.

9.46pm BST21:46

90 mins: A bit of a delay here after Van Persie hit someone with his arm and then kicked someone else, all in one beautifully savage movement. Pocognoli, the hittee, is receiving treatment.

9.44pm BST21:44

GOAL! West Brom 2-2 Man Utd (Blind, 87)

A fine finish, this. Nothing explosive about it, just composure and quality. Rafael’s cross isn’t up to much and is headed clear, but as Blind runs onto the ball 20-odd yards out half of Myhill’s goal is basically open, and he calmly sidefoots it into that corner with his left peg.

Updated at 10.01pm BST

9.42pm BST21:42

86 mins: Rafael dinks the ball into the penalty area, where half of the United team is offside. West Brom bring Mulumbu on in place of Sessegnon.

9.41pm BST21:41

85 mins: Neither side is playing particularly well at the moment, but West Brom have successfully forced United to play more centrally and deeper, instead of savagely hacking away down the flanks all the time.

9.39pm BST21:39

83 mins: United are running out of ideas, and Blind gets himself a booking for fouling Sessegnon, who had just totally outfoxed him with a feint and was happily heading upfield.

9.37pm BST21:37

81 mins: Shaw gets into way too much space on the left for West Brom’s liking, but Gardner flings himself at his cross to divert it for a corner, from which Rojo heads wide.

9.36pm BST21:36

80 mins: Fellaini fouls Morrison and then kicks the ball away. He isn’t booked.

9.34pm BST21:34

77 mins: Wisdom clouts a 30-yarder over the bar with his left peg. Apparently Di Maria’s first job, upon sitting down on the United bench, was to apply a large ice pack to his right thigh.

9.32pm BST21:32

76 mins: A final Manchester United substitution sees Di Maria come off and Ashley Young come on. Like for like, basically. More or less. Kind of.

9.30pm BST21:30

74 mins: Van Persie hits the post! It’s Di Maria, inevitably, with a long ball to Falcao. Lescott reaches it first but heads straight to Van Persie, 22 yards out, whose shot arrows right into the meat of the post and away to safety (or at least to Januzaj, who sends it into row Z).

9.29pm BST21:29

73 mins: Another handball shout, as Pocognoli, not looking at the ball and in the process of falling over, punches the ball. There was no possibility of intent there.

Updated at 9.37pm BST

9.28pm BST21:28

72 mins: Falcao runs straight up to Van Persie and tell shim to clear out of his centre-forward position.

9.28pm BST21:28

72 mins: Substitution for United: Mata goes off, and Falcao comes on.

9.25pm BST21:25

69 mins: Falcao is warming up. Van Persie has not achieved a great deal today, jetlag or no. Meanwhile, Rafael sends a long-range shot very high.

9.24pm BST21:24

67 mins: West Brom have had two shots on target. Whoever’s running their Twitter account will be hoping they hold on to their lead, or they’ll be getting all sorts of stick about this bit of half-timely goading:

Fellaini has now taken his tracksuit off, fortunately he has a Man Utd strip on underneath #WBAMUN

9.22pm BST21:22

GOAL! West Brom 2-1 Man Utd (Berahino, 66 mins)

Another fine goal! Brunt passes to Sessegnon, gets it back again, and then plays the ball into the enormous amount of space behind United’s extraordinarily high line. Berahino is onside – played on by Rafael on the right – and runs clear before curling a shot across the keeper and in at the far post with his right foot.

Updated at 9.31pm BST

9.21pm BST21:21

64 mins: “I remember a game last year when Moyes got slated because Utd broke the premier league crossing record,” recalls Andrew Gerrard. Fulham at home, I believe. “ How close are they tonight to breaking their own record?” I don’t know. They’re averaging a cross every 90 seconds or so this half so far.

9.19pm BST21:19

63 mins: Berahino gets the ball in the box, and Phil Jones clips his ankles. The striker stumbles, but doesn’t fall. And as a result, he doesn’t get a penalty.

9.16pm BST21:16

60 mins: Rafael cuts out a through-ball with a flying handball, sending Januzaj scampering clear on the counter-attack. Someone tries to take his legs away and misses, so someone else shoves him off the pitch, conceding a free-kick, as the crowd still bay and howl over the handball.

9.14pm BST21:14

59 mins: As I write, West Brom have the ball in the United half.

9.14pm BST21:14

58 mins: “The best chest control in the game bar none” – Rio Ferdinand’s description of Fellaini. Shame about the feet, of course, but you can’t have it all.

Marouane has the best chest control in the game bar none.... Kills the ball stone dead instantly....while holding mans off!

9.13pm BST21:13

57 mins: Oooooh! Again! Rafael is played into space on the right, carries the ball to the touchline and pulls it across the face of goal. Wisdom hacks clear at the back stick.

9.10pm BST21:10

55 mins: Just the 69% of second-half possession for the away team, and growing.

9.09pm BST21:09

53 mins: Mata’s shot is charged down as United’s total ownership of half two continues.

9.07pm BST21:07

51 mins: Oooooh! Januzaj crosses from the right, and just as Fellaini prepares to head himself into unexpected popularity in Manchester Dawson stretches his neck muscles to deflect the ball clear.

9.06pm BST21:06

50 mins: That was certainly Di Maria’s least eye-catching cross of the match. Funny old game etc.

9.05pm BST21:05

GOAL! WBA 1-1 Man Utd (Fellaini, 48 mins)

Another cracker! It’s a right-footed Di Maria cross from the left that Fellaini chests down, shifts onto his right foot and then thunders into the roof of the net from 16 yards. He may have worked some room by giving Lescott a shove, but the rest of it was totally excellent.

Updated at 9.18pm BST

9.03pm BST21:03

47 mins: Claims for handball as United send a corner into the West Brom penalty area, though it didn’t look like one to me (or, more pertinently, the referee).

9.02pm BST21:02

Peeeeeeeeeeep!

46 mins: United kick off the second half, pass the ball about a bit, and then thwack a long pass straight out of play.

9.01pm BST21:01

Substitution: Fellaini is indeed on, and Herrera has gone off.

9.00pm BST21:00

Jonathan Wilson’s team has lost, and thus go through to “a sub next round” and “could still win”. It was all a bit puzzling, really.

8.58pm BST20:58

As @ecuamatt on Twitter points out, it could be that Louis van Gaal is taking his tactical hints from Joey Barton.

With the quality of Di Maria's crossing surely it's better to have Felliani playing off RVP than Mata? Just a thought...

8.55pm BST20:55

Half-time entertainment: The Guardian’s own Jonathan Wilson is on Only Connect, a quiz show I’ve never seen before on BBC2 at the moment.

8.53pm BST20:53

Sky capture Van Gaal intercepting Fellaini as he set off for the dressing-room at half time, having a word, and then Fellaini doing extensive warming up. There is a substitution in the air, it seems.

8.47pm BST20:47

Half-time: WBA 1-0 Man Utd

45+2 mins: Manchester United spend the entire single minute of stoppage time in a state of about-to-scoreness, without actually scoring. Half time.

Updated at 8.51pm BST

8.45pm BST20:45

45+1 mins: We’re into the first minute of stoppage time. It’s the only one we’re going to get (probably).

8.45pm BST20:45

44 mins: Blind pulls back Sessegnon in front of the referee, in an attempt to stop a West Brom break. Literally, three yards away. Not much in it, contact-wise, but I thought (wrongly, obviously) such things are mandatory yellow cards these days.

8.42pm BST20:42

43 mins: West Brom win a free-kick on the left flank, and Lescott beats Rojo at the far post only to send his header high.

8.41pm BST20:41

41 mins: “Is Mata actually playing?” wonders George Wright. “Every time a United player has the ball in the bit of the pitch where Mata should be, it’s Hererra or Di Maria. Still, I suppose ‘totally anonymous’ is better than ‘actively unhelpful’, which is the state of our usual number 10.” He’s spending too much time hanging around the half-way line, I think. Presumably he’s been told to stand there.

8.39pm BST20:39

39 mins: Moments after that shot, Morrison brings down Herrera on the edge of the penalty area, and earns a booking. Mata scoops the free-kick over the bar.

8.38pm BST20:38

38 mins: Lescott tries to run out of play a pass that never reaches the touchline, and Van Persie steals the ball. He could have pulled back to either of two lurking team-mates, but instead his shot is blocked.

8.37pm BST20:37

36 mins: United are looking kind-of-threatening, not by making a string of chances but rather by emitting, in fits and starts, a general sense of quality. Di Maria crosses nicely again, but again no team-mate can reach it. Still, he’s putting together quite the highlights real of came-to-nothing crosses.

8.32pm BST20:32

32 mins: And another chance for Di Maria, a better one this time, but in space five yards wide of goal he decides not to try to score, and his cross is cleared.

8.31pm BST20:31

31 mins: Di Maria collects the ball 25 yards out and spears a shot that swerves one way and then the other before ending up – fortunately for the goalkeeper – more or less flying straight into Myhill.

8.30pm BST20:30

30 mins: Brunt wins the ball in his own half and immediately thumps a 40-yard pass towards Berahino. West Brom are desperate to get him isolated against Rojo, and clearly there’s potential there for them, but not this time.

Updated at 8.40pm BST

8.29pm BST20:29

28 mins: West Brom spend a while on the ball in their own half and unable to get rid of it, only for Brunt finally to find a team-mate in space with a clever backheel flick on the touchline. The kind of clever the could very easily have led to a United chance and an absolute rollicking, but clever all the same.

8.24pm BST20:24

24 mins: This match is not letting me down. The pace is high and the quality is just about keeping up. Dorrans’ cross from the right only just evades a diving Berahino.

8.22pm BST20:22

21 mins: Brunt, trying to chase down a long-ball, comes very close indeed to reaching it before De Gea, with nobody else about to help out.

8.19pm BST20:19

19 mins: Blind hits long and Di Maria controls, spins, and sees My Hill save. These are tough times for United fans, but Di Maria is a one-man optimism machine. “If WBA can do that to United,” writes Mark Judd of the opening goal, “then I dread to think what fun Chelsea and Man City will have toying with that defence.”

8.17pm BST20:17

17 mins: A lovely cross from Di Maria on the left. Lescott heads clear, but it’s still a lovely cross, the kind of cross you’d happily watch several replays of. He curled it into the danger area just so.

Updated at 8.35pm BST

8.15pm BST20:15

15 mins: Dawson’s long-ball finds Berahino battling against Rojo. The striker wins the duel on points but can’t work space to shoot, and when the ball rolls back to Morrison his long-range strike flies over.

8.14pm BST20:14

13 mins: Januzaj, running down the right wing, feels a defender’s hand on his shoulder, so kicks the ball forward and falls over. Goal kick. “Is this Man Utd team the most left-footed ever?” wonders Harry Bronsdon. “Rojo, Shaw, januzaj, Mata, Di Maria, Van Persie and Blind are all left-footed.” It’s an interesting question. The best answer I can give is, quite possibly.

8.11pm BST20:11

12 mins: United waste their corner, but swiftly win another one, and when Blind eventually swings the ball in Januzaj fouls Dorrans, and West Brom get a breather. Incidentally, it was Wisdom who set up the goal, obviously.

8.10pm BST20:10

10 mins: Chance for United! Di Maria’s pass from not far beyond the half-way line picks out Van Persie’s run, and his low, first-time shot is beaten away by Bo My Hill.

8.09pm BST20:09

GOAL! WBA 1-0 Man Utd (Sessegnon, 8 mins)

Wonderful goal! Gorgeous, lovely goal! The throw-in goes to the keeper, and his kick is flicked to Wisdom, in space on the right. He’s in loads of space, and has time to look up, spot Sessegnon and slide the ball into his path, 20 yards out. The first-time finish is spectacular, sending the ball rocketing into the top corner.

Updated at 8.20pm BST

8.07pm BST20:07

8 mins: Now United enjoy their own period of possession, but after passing it around very deliberately for a while the ball is given to Di Maria, who hits a pass to nobody that rolls off the pitch.

8.05pm BST20:05

5 mins: Excellent start from West Brom, who have totally dominated these early skirmishes. Their possessions ends with Sessegnon slightly overhitting his pass to Berahino, and the ball rumbles through to De Gea.

8.03pm BST20:03

2 mins: More Sky commentary magic, where we’re told that in their last game at Anfield the Baggies “by all accounts” “deserved to win” … “according to Alan Irvine”. So according to one account then. One uniquely biased account. He may be right, I don’t know, but Sky need to account for their accounts. “In a deep, dramatic voice: ‘Eleven men in red, in search of redemption. They started it, and they’ll finish it. Starting XI. In cinemas now. Rated 18.’” Yes! I want to see that trailer.

8.01pm BST20:01

1 min: An early third-of-a-chance for the Baggies as Sessegnon lollipops his way into the box and pulls back to Dorrans, whose shot is blocked.

8.00pm BST20:00

Peeeeeeeeeep!

1 min: West Brom get the party started, and take an early lead in the throw-ins-won stats.

7.57pm BST19:57

On Sky they call the West Brom stand-in keeper Bo Myhill. It makes him sound like a spin-off of Pimp My Ride.

7.56pm BST19:56

Well done to West Brom for finding some properly diminutive mascots. Some of them can’t be any older than six. Genuine, old-fashioned mascotry there.

7.55pm BST19:55

The players are in the tunnel. Gird your loins, people.

7.49pm BST19:49

“Is it just me or does the United team selection tweet make it look like Van Persie is in goal and De Gea is up front of a newfangled 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1 formation,” wonders Bruce Cooper. To me it looks like a poster for a star-studded new movie called Starting XI. I can’t imagine what its plot might have been, but Starting must have been pretty amazing for it to inspire 10 sequels.

7.38pm BST19:38

There are some nice pre-match pictures of Van Gaal, floodlights shining behind him. Here’s one for your scrapbooks:

7.36pm BST19:36

This is the Press Association’s take on the teams:

Ben Foster missed out for West Brom after suffering a calf injury in training while Manchester United boss Louis van Gaal dropped Radamel Falcao to the bench for Monday night’s clash at The Hawthorns.

Foster was replaced by Boaz Myhill in the Baggies goal, but captain Chris Brunt shrugged off a groin injury to start.

Van Gaal chose to give Adnan Januzaj his first league start of the season with Robin van Persie the lone striker and Falcao on the bench despite Wayne Rooney’s suspension.

Phil Jones returned from injury to replace Paddy McNair, while Michael Carrick – yet to make an appearance this season – made the bench as he stepped up his recovery from ankle ligament damage.

7.31pm BST19:31

“I don’t know what is happening to me cause I’m just feeling that West Brom will win this game,” sobs Liberty Amon. “I still wonder who is better now between Moyes and LVG, can anyone help me?” I can think of someone, or rather 11 people, who can probably be of use …

7.28pm BST19:28

Alan Irvine speaks! Very quickly! Saying very obvious things!

It’s disappointing [that Ben Foster’s injured], because he’s a great goalkeeper. But we’ve got another very good goalkeeper so we’re fortunate from that point of view.

Obviously we’ve got to be good when they’re in possession of the ball, but probably more important than that, we’ve got to be good when we’re in possession. I feel that the key will be how well we use the ball.

7.20pm BST19:20

If you’re not already excited about tonight’s game, consider this: the last five matches between these teams at the Hawthorns have brought 24 goals at nearly (does complicated mental arithmetic) five a game. The last century of league matches between West Brom and Manchester United have brought just three goalless draws – one in 1915, one in 1921 and a third in January 1983. In football there’s no guarantee of goals, but when it comes to West Brom v Manchester United, there is a guarantee of goals. This is going to be extraordinarily exciting, or your money back*.

* Use of this website is free. You’re not getting any money back. Sorry.

7.11pm BST19:11

Louis van Gaal speaks to Sky!

I think that Van Persie was two days before Falcao back, he was overseas in South America. It’s a big difference. He has also jet lag. So that is mainly also the reason [why he’s on the bench].

Of course it’s a chance for Januzaj, but I gave him already a lot of minutes in the team, only as a substitute, and now he’s a line-up player.

It’s very important to win away, especially in this moment, because we have to show if we can go on or not, at the top.

[After back-to-back wins, are United close to their best?] I think, OK, maybe we had a progression in results but I want to see more in the playing style and in the performance of our philosophy, and that is what I am waiting for.

7.08pm BST19:08

Non-Twitter-based teams. And a first start of the season for Adnan Januzaj:

West Brom: Myhill, Wisdom, Dawson, Lescott, Pocognoli, Gardner, Morrison, Dorrans, Sessegnon, Brunt, Berahino. Subs: Ideye, Anichebe, Gamboa, Luke Daniels, Mulumbu, McAuley, Blanco. Man Utd: De Gea, Da Silva, Jones, Rojo, Shaw, Blind, Ander Herrera, Di Maria, Mata, Januzaj, van Persie. Subs: Falcao, Smalling, Lindegaard, Carrick, Young, Fletcher, Fellaini. Referee: Mike Dean.

7.03pm BST19:03

So there’s no Falcao in United’s starting XI, and no Ben Foster in the Baggies’ – he’s got a training-induced calf strain.

7.01pm BST19:01

Hello world!

So, without further (or indeed any) ado, some Twitter-based team news:

Albion v @ManUtd: Myhill, Wisdom, Lescott, Dawson, Pocognoli, Gardner, Brunt, Morrison, Dorrans, Sessegnon, Berahino. #WBAMUN #COYB

Albion subs v @ManUtd: Daniels, Gamboa, McAuley, Mulumbu, Blanco, Ideye, Anichebe. #WBAMUN #COYB

United starting XI: De Gea, Rafael, Jones, Rojo, Shaw, Blind, Herrera, Januzaj, Mata, Di Maria, van Persie #mufclive pic.twitter.com/7vD4CLZjXG

Updated at 7.25pm BST