West Ham United Vs. Manchester United Score: 2-4 Full Time, Wayne Rooney Scores A Hat Trick

West Ham United appeared to be well on their way to a big victory for themselves in the relegation race and for a couple of other teams in the title race, thanks to two early penalty kicks, but a Wayne Rooney hat trick has nullified those goals as Manchester United have taken a huge win by the score of 4-2. The fourth goal was added by Javier Hernandez, who scored a tap-in off of a low cross in typical Chicharito fashion. Rooney looks like he’s finally heating up, while there may not be a hotter player in the world than Chicharito. He has six goals in seven games for Manchester United, in addition to a hat trick scored for Mexico a week ago.

Referee Lee Mason was given a lot to do in this match, as three of the six goals were scored on penalty kicks. One of those decisions was absolutely correct, and the other two were the kind of close decisions that could be given either way and it would be unfair to fault the referee. Each team got one of those borderline decisions in their favor, so it would be disingenuous to suggest that Mason was poor or that he affected the game significantly.

United were the vastly superior side in the second half, with Alex Ferguson’s decisions to introduce Chicharito and move Ryan Giggs to left back paying obvious dividends. Still, the star of the show was Rooney, who was simply stunning in the second half.