West Ham 0 Manchester United 4

With the likes of Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic absent through injury you may have been mistaken for thinking United were there for the taking but if they were West Ham weren't the team to do it.

With midfielder Darren Fletcher filling in at right back and Gary Neville deputising for West Ham old boy Ferdinand at centre-half, this was the game where putting pressure on the make-shift back four could have paid dividends for the Irons.

They were helped even more when Neville limped off with a groin injury after half an hour, with another West Ham product, Michael Carrick, slotting in to the defensive role.

But try as they might West Ham could not crank up enough pressure on the visitors, despite an admirable work ethic, particularly in the first half

The Hammers even fashioned a half-chance when Jack Collison almost made Ryan Giggs pay for a sloppy pass across his 18-yard line, although the veteran winger did well to tackle back to deny his Welsh colleague.

And it was another old stager who broke the deadlock in first half injury time. Paul Scholes capitalised on some poor defending, when West Ham failed to clear their lines three times, to crack a ferocious left foot shot from 18 yards past Green to break the Irons resistance.

If Manchester United had been cruising in the first period they went into overdrive for the first 20 minutes of the second half.

Having been let off two minutes after the restart when Junior Stanislas hesitated when he really should have latched onto Guillermo Franco's sublime through ball, United showed how it should be done.

Giggs and Rooney combined superbly to set up Irish youngster Darron Gibson to fire home from 20 yards with 61 minutes on the clock.

West Ham responded when Alessandro Diamanti, who provided some much-needed pep to the Irons attack, drove a curling free-kick goalwards, only to see Tomasz Kuszczak tip it over.

The introduction of Kieron Dyer for the ineffectual Radoslav Kovac should have signalled more attacking intent from the home side but instead it was the visitors who killed the game with two goals in two minutes that demonstrated the effectiveness of their counter-attacking game.

Firstly, Antonio Valencia swept the ball home from three yards after Rooney set Anderson free down the right wing to put over a dangerous cross, and then Rooney himself, again from three yards, finished off a flowing move.

Green, who was feeling sick and eventually had to leave the field after vomiting in the goalmouth, was helpless and the poor defending in front of him would not have helped his condition.

As it was the England keeper had to leave the field to give Peter Kurucz his first taste of Premier League action.

It could have been a baptism of fire but United, the game won, eased off and coasted towards the final whistle.

Stanislas had the chance to pull back a consolation goal on 77 minutes when the young winger had a clear shot but he pulled his effort wide of the far post.

United even coped with being reduced to 10 men when Wes Brown left the pitch with a hamstring problem a minute from the end. By then the game was up and the final whistle blew to large sections of empty seating in the home stands.

Zola was putting a brave face on the defeat but his problems are mounting. The Irons look toothless without Carlton Cole to lead the attack and if they concede they don't look like getting back into games.

Zola defended his tactics but acknowledged his team were second best.

He said: "We tried to pressure them, but the game plan was to wait for them.

"They were playing with five midfielders, so they were playing with three midfielders and two wings, so I knew they were expecting us to go and play on the counter attack. What we wanted was for them to come and us to do the same to them.

"It was working quite well, but their goal changed everything.

"All I can say is that we didn't pose much threat to them, that is fair enough, but don't forget that they are the champions and we had a lot of young players in our team and so it wasn't easy."

West Ham: Green (Kurucz, 73), Spector, Ilunga, Gabbidon, Tomkins, Parker, Kovac (Dyer, 67), Collison, Hines (Diamanti, 46), Stanislas, Franco. Unused subs: Faubert, Da Costa, Nouble, Payne.

Manchester United: Kuszcak, Neville (Carrick, 34), Evra, Brown, Fletcher, Anderson, Scholes, Giggs, Rooney (Owen, 73), Valencia, Gibson (Berbatov, 67). Unused subs: Foster, Park, Nani, De Laet.

Booked: Scholes

Goals: Scholes 45+1, Gibson 61, Valencia 71, Rooney 72.

Attendance: 34,980

Referee: Peter Walton