Better late than never, Ten Hag's style is presented at Old Trafford

On the balance of play it's fair to say Manchester United didn't deserve to win this game 3-0. But for the first time this season, they are starting to show the clinical edge that can sometimes mark out the very best sides. West Ham had almost twice as many shots as United and some very good chances, but they weren't efficient in front of goal and Erik ten Hag's side were. It's a ruthless side of the game we haven't seen enough this season but which is beginning to come to the fore at a valuable point of the campaign.

The new duo! Manchester United gets a impressive 3-0 win against West Ham

United have scored 15 goals in their last five games and although two of those were against teams from League One and League Two, they also scored twice against Tottenham, four times at Wolves and now three against West Ham. The finishes produced by Rasmus Hojlund for the first and Alejandro Garnacho for the third showed how important players who can put chances away are. Maybe it's a learning curve for young players, but this side were guilty of missing too many chances earlier in the season. Now they are capitalising more often than not.

Hojlund is leading that change. His goal to open the scoring on Sunday came out of nothing. He worked the space for himself and finished brilliantly. It set an example that Garnacho followed and although this wasn't a brilliant United performance the scoreline was convincing, which has rarely been the case this season. On countless occasions this season Ten Hag has complained about the lack of a clinical edge in his team. He even did so after the draw against Tottenham last month. He told his team they "weren't clinical enough" after the 3-3 draw with Galatasaray in Istanbul that all but ended their Champions League campaign. Finally, it looks like the message is getting through.

Raphael Varane's fitness record speaks for itself at United and in a way the World Cup winner had a good run starting six successive games without picking up another issue, before being benched against West Ham. That was his longest run of starts in a row in two years and shows how badly injuries have affected his time at the club and his ability to string a run of games together. He remains a superb centre-back, but he struggles to play twice a week, has already retired from international duty and has gone public with his complaints about the schedule. He is going to need to be rested every now and again and with Maguire back fit it made sense to rotate here, especially given Varane had played at Wolves on Thursday night. Maguire's form this season has warranted more starts.

Hojlund strikes again as Man United lead 1-0 against West Ham

Strange moment

He defended well against the Hammers in the first half. He read the game superbly early on to get to the ball ahead of Bowen and then made a superb tackle later to block Mohammed Kudus, when he was about to play Ben Johnson into acres of space down the right. There were a couple of shaky moments after the break, gifting a big chance to Emerson Palmieri at 1-0 and then allowing a ball to go over his head to let Bowen in at 2-0. He got away with both, however, and that is maybe the difference for Maguire at the moment.