Manchester United\u00a0survived a late scare to clinch an uninspiring victory at West Brom.<\/p>\n
Romelu Lukaku’s 15th goal of the season and Jesse Lingard’s deflected effort sealed a 2-1 win at The Hawthorns.<\/p>\n
They were made to sweat after Gareth Barry’s second-half strike but held on, and once again they sit 11 points behind Premier League leaders\u00a0Manchester City.<\/p>\n
Albion at least scored their first goal under Alan Pardew but remain\u00a0second\u00a0bottom, now two points from safety after extending their winless league run to 16 games.<\/p>\n
They lived dangerously during United’s bright start with former\u00a0Hawthorns\u00a0loanee Lukaku,\u00a0Juan Mata\u00a0and Marcus Rashford lively but the visitors failed to find an early breakthrough.<\/p>\n
But for all their possession United never worried\u00a0Ben Foster\u00a0and the Baggies remained comfortable as they sat deep.<\/p>\n
There seemed little immediate threat but Lukaku, who scored a hat-trick for Albion against Manchester United in 2013, ended the monotony when he opened the scoring after 27 minutes.<\/p>\n
Again it was pedestrian build-up but this time it had an end product as Rashford dug out a cross on the left for Lukaku to out-jump Kieran Gibbs and power in a header from 10 yards.<\/p>\n
And it sparked a second as United doubled their lead eight minutes later.<\/p>\n
Lukaku and Mata linked up to find Lingard and the England international’s shot from 18 yards was deflected over the helpless Foster by Ahmed Hegazi’s outstretched leg.<\/p>\n
With\u00a0that\u00a0it was an uphill battle for Albion as they searched for a first win since August.<\/p>\n
Jake Livermore at least forced\u00a0David De Gea\u00a0into a low save but, as an attacking force, the Baggies were anonymous.<\/p>\n
The second half followed the same pattern until Rashford and Hegazi clashed, with the Egyptian defender appearing to push his head into Rashford’s.<\/p>\n
Only the United striker was booked for the altercation but he did almost add a third goal after 56 minutes, arrowing a snapshot a yard wide.<\/p>\n
It was a rare effort during a drab second half and Rondon summed up Albion’s efforts when he miscued an effort straight at De Gea with 17 minutes left.<\/p>\n
But Albion did pull a goal back after 77 minutes when United failed to deal with Chris Brunt’s corner and Barry stabbed in from close range.<\/p>\n
It was poor defending from United, who had earlier lost Antonio Valencia to injury, but they held on despite Albion’s late rally.<\/p>\n
De Gea and Barry clashed after Barry caught the goalkeeper and Jay Rodriguez headed wide as Albion failed to find a leveller.<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
Source:\u00a0TalkSport<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Manchester United\u00a0survived a late scare to clinch an uninspiring victory at West Brom. Romelu Lukaku’s 15th goal of the season and Jesse Lingard’s deflected effort sealed a 2-1 win at The Hawthorns. They were made to sweat after Gareth Barry’s second-half strike but held on, and once again they sit 11 points behind Premier League […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":384177,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[142],"tags":[15507,104,8972,3689],"yoast_head":"\n