Anton Ferdinand blasts West Ham United for not testing Harry Maguire in defeat vs Manchester United
Anton Ferdinand has blasted West Ham for showing not testing Harry Maguire during their defeat to Manchester United on Sunday afternoon.
The Hammers were beaten 1-0 thanks to Marcus Rashford’s first-half header, while David De Gea turned in a top performance in the final 20 minutes to keep a clean sheet and condemn West Ham to a seventh league defeat already this season.
Despite coming close on several occasions, Ferdinand appeared on Vibe with Five [31 October] to discuss the game and the BT Sport pundit admitted that he felt the team weren’t trying to take the game to the hosts.
“West Ham didn’t show much personality on the ball yesterday I don’t think,” he said.
“Teams that have gone to Old Trafford with no fear have done well this year and I think West Ham, at times, weren’t assertive on the ball. They weren’t taking the game to Manchester United.
“Especially with like Harry Maguire playing. He ain’t played for how many weeks because of injury, you’ve got to test him.
“Late on they did and if it wasn’t for David De Gea then it could have been a different story.”
Hard
Manchester United have been in turmoil over the years and they have struggled at points this season, but they’re far better than most give them credit for.
The first half of the game wasn’t good enough from West Ham’s point of view as they didn’t make the most of their chances in possession and were incredibly sloppy on the ball.
But in the second half they were far better and losing the game was a big blow after having the team on the back foot for so long. But Ferdinand’s comments seem harsh.
They had the better of the game for the most part and with a bit more quality on the pitch or with De Gea not playing out of his skin then the narrative would have been entirely different.
Maybe if Moyes had been braver we would have got more of a reward, but there’s also every possibility that we would have been more open and got dominated too.