The tide is turning in Manchester for David Moyes as he saw his side beat Stoke City 2-0 to reach the League Cup semi-finals on Wednesday. That is three wins in a week for United, in three different competitions, with three clean sheets.
In the night’s other game, firing Andre Villas-Boas did nothing to life the gloom surrounding Tottenham Hotspur as they could not hold onto a one goal lead and lost 2-1 at home to West Ham United.
Conditions are the Britannia Stadium were miserable with high winds and heavy rain. When the rain turned to hail in the 28th minute, referee Mark Clattenburg halted the match for 10 minutes saying that he was unable to see the players.
Under these playing conditions, this was never going to be a footballing classic, but United scored two second half goals that would have been good enough to grace any pitch.
First Ashley Young played a pass forward to Javier Hernandez and when the ball came back to him on the edge of the box, he met it with a first-time drive past Thomas Sorensen.
Then with 12 minutes to go, United wrapped up the win when Patrice Evra exchanged passes with Young before curling a fine shot inside the right-hand post with his seldom-used right foot.
In North London, it was the same old story for Spurs as they dominated possession but could not turn that possession into goals and eventually let a 1-0 lead slip in a 2-1 loss at home to London rivals West Ham.
Interim coach Tim Sherwood picked an adventurous team, giving Emmanuel Adebayor his first start of the season alongside Jermain Defoe up front, and the pair combined to give Spurs the lead in the 67th minute.
Defoe crossed from the left and Adebayor slid in to slam home an emphatic volley via the underside of the crossbar.
However, there was a blow for Spurs when Andros Townsend was forced off with an apparent hamstring injury and in the 80th minute West Ham levelled when Matt Taylor teed up Matt Jarvis to beat Hugo Lloris at his near post.
Modibo Maiga completed West Ham’s comeback five minutes later, heading in a Mohamed Diame cross to give Sam Allardyce’s side a second consecutive win at White Hart Lane following a 3-0 league success in October.
