Four things we learned as Sesko saves United’s blushes in edgy West Ham draw

Manchester United’s magical renaissance under Michael Carrick stumbled but didn’t quite fall in East London where they snatched a last-gasp draw at West Ham. After a turgid first half the hosts took the lead shortly after the interval and looked to have defended it well enough to condemn United to a 1-0 defeat, but Benjamin Sesko‘s glorious injury time finish salvaged a point for United. Here are four things we learned from Carrick’s first dropped points in charge. Time machine performance United were unrecognisable from the full-throttle side reborn against Manchester City. Parts of the first half were played at walking pace, and the team that could have scored within a minute against Fulham last weekend struggled to do anything at all in the final third. Certainly West Ham tails were up after a good run of form boosted their chances of Premier League survival, but it was a crushing disappointment that United – the league’s form side – looked so sluggish. They snatched a draw from the jaws of a deserved defeat straight out of the Ruben Amorim era, and put in the kind of performance Red Devils hoped they had put behind them since sacking the Portuguese coach. Regression session Part and parcel of United’s dreary performance was the reversion to type of certain key players. Diogo Dalot’s run of fine form came to an end as his momentum-killing mistakes crept back in and he rounded it off with a petulant yellow card. Further up the pitch Matheus Cunha misfired and Amad was peripheral – things we’ve seen all too often this season. Carrick must find a way to bring back the feelgood factor which has powered his revolution to date, and if that involves switching up the starting lineup then so be it. It might be broke, consider fixing it United have hardly put a foot wrong in the Carrick era so far, and not for nothing has the interim head coach been consistent with his team selections. For the third game running, Carrick started an unchanged XI and it’s difficult to argue with his logic. But it seems that he didn’t factor in a chronic inability to play twice in a week, or some other unnamed factor which drained all the zest out of the team until their backs were firmly against the wall. It was a reassuring hour before the game as Carrick’s consistency continued to prove a welcome change from Amorim’s relentless tinkering, but the flat performance indicates that rotation isn’t necessarily a bad thing – particular when Sesko came off the bench to pinch an essential equaliser with a wonderful finish. Passing a positive Since Carrick took control United have been much slicker on the ball, and it was a similar story tonight despite the drop in tempo. The Red Devils played their way out of tight corners with a coolness and understanding that has been sorely lacking – the fact that these exchanges didn’t bear goalscoring fruit is another story. Cunha and Bruno Fernandes were smart in the middle of the pitch, and Harry Maguire continued to build a strong understanding with the fleet-footed Lisandro Martinez to bring a calmness to pushing it around at the back. There is work to do to bring back the urgency, but at least the technical side of things was still on display tonight. Featured image James Fearn via Getty Images The Peoples Person has been one of the world’s leading Man United news sites for over a decade. Follow us on Bluesky: @peoplesperson.bsky.social Joe Ponting Joe has spent more than half his life writing about football and all of it following United. As a child he told a doctor his name was ‘Paul Scholes’, but could never pick a pass like him no matter how much he tried. He cut his teeth working in print media for local newspapers and entered football journalism covering the grassroots game for the Non-League Paper. Here he achieved a career high, interviewing United legend Sir Bobby Charlton to get his views on the lower echelons of the football pyramid. To kill time during international breaks Joe writes album reviews and has strong views on post punk for Plus One Magazine.