West Ham were today intensifying their bid to sign Portugal midfielder William Carvalho in the wake of their heavy defeat at Old Trafford.
Slaven Bilic’s side were overwhelmed by a powerful United team, especially in midfield where former Chelsea powerhouse Nemanja Matic ran riot.
Without injured players Cheikhou Kouyate, Michail Antonio and Manuel Lanzini, West Ham lost all the important battles, emphasising the urgent need for a holding midfielder of Carvalho’s type.
Carvalho’s club, Sporting Lisbon, are holding out for £36million and West Ham have had an offer of £27m rejected.
The Hammers were today expected to make a second, improved offer of £30m, rising by another £6m with performance-related bonuses.
Carvalho, a member of Portugal’s victorious Euro 2016 team, is keen on the move and was left out of Sporting Lisbon’s 1-0 win against Setubal at the weekend.
West Ham centre-half Winston Reid, meanwhile, admitted the 4-0 defeat had been “a short, sharp lesson” but remained confident that better times were ahead.
In Pictures | Manchester United vs West Ham | 13/08/2017
“They are a good team but we didn’t match them in the effort levels and if you don’t do that, it is always going to be very difficult,” he said.
“What went wrong was a short, sharp lesson and we must turn things around next week. We worked really hard in pre-season and wanted to put in a good performance and that happens.
“The key for us was that we couldn’t allow them to hit us on the break because we knew they had the pace and the quality to hurt us.
“We wanted to make them pass it at the back but we allowed them to score the first goal. Then we came out in the second half and tried to control the ball a bit better but they scored from a set-piece which killed the game.
“We’re disappointed and we all let ourselves down. I don’t think it was a lack of effort, more a lack of execution and picking the right moments to do things.
“We will bounce back, though. We have got really good characters in the four players that we have signed. “
One of that quartet, striker Javier Hernandez, admitted his former team were clinical.
The £16m summer signing, who was largely isolated up front for West Ham, said: “They were more ruthless and after the second goal, things went very positively for them. They are Manchester United and they finished us off.
“It’s the first game of the season and obviously we are not happy with the result. We played a team who were in better form than us.
“We can say a lot of stuff but that won’t change anything. We lost to a better team and now we have to improve and keep working.”
Bilic expected more from his team. One positive, though, is that Antonio (hamstring) and Lanzini (knee) are expected to be available for Saturday’s match at Southampton.