West Ham 0-4 Manchester United

To be honest, I was a bit nervous going into this match because West Ham is never an easy team to play against, especially on their turf. But we ended up with a comfortable win, and kept a clean sheet, which is remarkable having literally no central defender, and ended up playing with 7 midfielders.

There are two sides to this tale: There was the defiance in the face of horrendous injury problems in defence, which saw Darren Fletcher and Michael Carrick deployed in a makeshift back four, and there was the devastation caused by United’s scintillating passing football, scything open West Ham’s own rearguard at will in the second half.

Paul Scholes gave United a half-time lead seconds before the last whistle of the first 45 minutes, while goals from Darron Gibson, Antonio Valencia and Wayne Rooney in a destructive 12-minute second-half spell sealed an inspiring victory.

United’s defence remains decimated – a point of great concern for the busy weeks ahead – with Patrice Evra being the only first-choice member of the usual back four selected in his natural position. Rio Ferdinand, Nemanja Vidic, John O’Shea, Jonny Evans, Rafael and Fabio were all missing at Upton Park, as was Edwin van der Sar, meaning Sir Alex had drafted in Fletcher at right-back, shifted Gary Neville into central defence with Wes Brown, and Tomasz Kuszczak continued to deputise in goal. Worse still, Neville and Brown were both forced off with injury during the game.

Report from ManUtd.com

[Scholes celebrating his goal]

Paul Scholes' opener marked his 99th Premier League goal for United. With Ryan Giggs scored his 100th recently, I hope Scholesy gets his soon.

I just hope that we'll get our defenders back soon! We can't play top flight football like this:

The other side of the story was, of course, the depleted defence – and the back four at the end of the match, with Brown a late withdrawal, was unprecedented: Fletcher, Carrick, Evra, Giggs.

I mean, it might work, but I'd rather have them in their original positions to pose more threat to our opponents.

The day went on to be better when City beat Chelsea 2-1. I, once again, thank Carlos Tevez for his services to Manchester United. We're now only 2 points behind the leaders and we're just starting to pick up pace.