Premier League: Marcus Rashford fires 100th club goal to power Manchester United to win over West Ham

Manchester [UK], October 31 (ANI): The homegrown Manchester United star Marcus Rashford fired his 100th goal for the club to help his side clinch a 1-0 win over West Ham United in their Premier League match at Old Trafford on Sunday.
With this, he became the 22nd player to score 100 goals for the club.
This victory has taken Manchester United to the fifth position in the points table with 23 points and seven wins in 12 matches. West Ham on the other hand is at 13th position with 14 points and four wins in 13 matches.
Said Benrahma and Bowen made full use of space left vacated by Manchester United’s disjointed defence without truly calling De Gea into action. In the 38th minute, Christian Eriksen’s exchange with Bruno Fernandes ended with the Dane performing a cross into the area in which Rashford lept above Hammers defender Thilo Kehrer and netted the ball emphatically past Lukasz Fabianski.
Rashford looked completely in his element and could have added one more goal to the tally in the second half, but the hosts failed to do so. Instead, West Ham created more pressure on United defence. But it was the gameplay and awareness of Diogo Dalot that kept the hosts safe from an equaliser.
Cristiano Ronaldo also got some chances to score in the second half, but was unsuccessful.
The introduction of Michail Antonio added more power to West Ham’s squad. Craig Dawson shot from the distance and Benrahma’s low shot made De Gea swing into action and make a save.
Six minutes away from full-time, Zouma’s flick was intercepted by De Gea. Fred also missed the chance to double the lead after his header hit the frame of his opponent’s goal.
Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag was quoted as saying to Sky Sports: “I think we made a great goal. It was magnificent, the pass from Christian Eriksen and then the header was really a hammer from Marcus Rashford. It is so great as it is a player out of the academy scoring his 100th goal and the 85th anniversary [of the academy] today. So he’s really representing the work of Man United and it values the good work that the academy is doing. And Marcus Rashford, tomorrow is his 25th birthday as well. A great present I would say!”
“In our philosophy, you have to defend with 11. At the start, it was difficult but we are coming more and more to that point. We do it together, the spirit in the team is good you can see it in every header, they support each other and cover each other. The fans like it as well and you can see the bond that is coming and developing between the teams and the fans.”
“In the second half we have to manage it better. But the spirit we have is fabulous. We have the quality to score goals, but attacking football effectiveness we have to improve that. But we are going in the direction, but being a threat is a long way to go,” he concluded.
West Ham manager David Moyes said, “If you look through the game, we have been really close. We deserved to come away with something. I do not think we could have done much more. We gave the ball away a bit too much and that led to Man United’s goal but overall we played well. In the second half especially we took our chances.”
“We know what a great keeper De Gea is, he was during my time here, and we hoped he would not save one of those two chances. I’m pleased for De Gea because he is a great guy but disappointed that one of those did not go in. Jarrod makes a great chance and we are just lacking that little bit of clinical edge. I have to praise our players, we put in a great shift today,” he concluded. (ANI)