LONDON: Jesse Lingard and David de Gea were last-minute heroes as Manchester United came from behind at West Ham to maintain the top-of-the-table pressure.

First Lingard, superb on loan for West Ham last season, arrived as a late substitute to put United 2:1 ahead away to Hammers. Then De Gea preserved the three points with a 95th-minute penalty save from West Ham veteran Mark Noble.

Noble had been brought on as substitute specifically to take the penalty because of his record of only six failures in 42 kicks, the last in 2016. But West Ham manager David Moyes proved guilty of the same mistake as England’s Gareth Southgate. Both England’s ‘cold starters’ Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho had missed their penalties in the Euro 2020 shootout against Italy.

Justice was done for United. Cristiano Ronaldo, who had scored their opening goal, should probably have been awarded two penalties late in the game. Twice he was apparently fouled as United caught West Ham on the counter-attack. Each time referee Martin Atkinson ignored United appeals.

Earlier West Ham had opened the score after half an hour through Said Benrahma. Five minutes later Ronaldo equalised with a goal in his third successive match after two in last week’s win over Newcastle then a consolation in the midweek Champions League defeat by Young Boys in Bern.

Ironically United lost that match because of a disastrous back pass by substitute Lingard in stoppage time. Now he had made amends.

United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer said: “Jesse had a tough evening on Tuesday but he’s a positive lad. I’m so happy for him. Now we’ve got to work better defensively.”

Moyes said: “In Mark we have one of the best penalty takers in the Premier League and Europe. I asked him and he said he was ready, he has a great record, why not? We’ve missed a few recently so I thought I’d take the opportunity to bring Mark on.”

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