Today marked the return of the Premier League for West Ham United. As with every season, we went into the first game with optimism, even if it was against the giants of Manchester United.
Alas, the new season greeted us with a hard slap across the face followed by a couple of buckets of water thrown over us for good measure. A 4-0 drubbing was not what we had expected.
Man United have strengthened considerably over the summer and as with most Jose Mourinho sides, their second season is normally best. However, West Ham have also strengthened with our four main summer signings all starting. These were Joe Hart, Pablo Zabaleta, Marko Arnautovic and Javier Hernandez.
Unfortunately, the new signings could do nothing to change the course of the match. United controlled the game from minute one and eventually broke the deadlock through arch-nemesis Romelu Lukaku. He quickly bagged another before a capitulation in the final ten added two more goals from Anthony Martial and Paul Pogba respectively to round up an uninspiring performance for the Hammers.
We look at four findings from the game:
