Roeder shattered by United rampage

The sight of Glenn Roeder standing on the touchline, giving instructions to a team six goals down was a forlorn one. King Canute might just as well have sat on his beach and asked the waves to push up more or told the pebbles to hold a tight line.

Before yesterday's Old Trafford turkey shoot, the West Ham manager had explained he found it hard to lambast his defenders lest he bruise fragile egos. Now, after a surrender as supine as any West Ham have managed in a season whose disintegration seems as inevitable as the tides, he spent an hour closeted in the dressing-room with his players delivering home truths.

"It was excruciating... anger, frustration... to say the least it was abysmal," Roeder replied when asked to describe his feelings in the early part of the second half when Manchester United were scoring almost at will. "Sometimes when you criticise players it's water off a duck's back but some people have certainly got the blast they deserved afterwards. There are players who did not fight as I would have expected. Things like effort, work rate, drive and desire are the easy things to bring to the party and we didn't."

Roeder specifically excluded Joe Cole but did not argue when it was suggested that throughout this disastrous season West Ham's defence has not been up to the required standard. He would not name individuals in public but said he expected two more defenders to arrive at West Ham's training ground early this week. He anticipated he would still be employed to take training, although it is hard to imagine Roeder surviving much past Sunday should there not be a dramatic turnaround in form and attitude. This was incontrovertible evidence that West Ham are bad enough to go down.

Frankly, Farnborough put up more resistance at Highbury than West Ham managed at Old Trafford and the gulf in class was as vast. From the moment Gary Breen handed Ruud van Nistelrooy possession in his own penalty area, Manchester United's progress into the fifth round of the FA Cup was utterly untroubled. Breen contributed to three of United's six goals and the Scotland manager, Berti Vogts, who presumably had come to see Christian Dailly, must have wondered what a man not good enough to start in this defence could offer him.

Had Paul Scholes not struck the post, capping a move in which United strung 27 passes together, or David James not made a remarkable save from David Beckham, Manchester United might have matched the eight goals they scored in the FA Cup at Northampton in February 1970, a day when George Best scored six.

Yesterday, United settled for half a dozen between them. The first two were scored by Ryan Giggs before the tie was half an hour old, extending West Ham's run without a clean sheet to 17 matches. The first came as he seized on Ian Pearce's desperate goal-line clearance, the second as he anticipated Juan Sebastian Veron's delicate back-heel. Together, they might quell the ill-feeling that has been building up around Old Trafford towards the Welshman.

Afterwards, his manager acknowledged that Giggs' form had tailed off. "There is not a player on this planet not affected by confidence," declared Sir Alex Ferguson. "Ryan has been affected by that but now he's bang on form."

So is Van Nistelrooy, who has now scored four times in two FA Cup ties. He struck three minutes after the restart, a time when the 7,000 who had travelled from West Ham's hinterlands in Essex and east London must have hoped their club could capitalise on some neat football displayed just before the interval. Again Breen was too easily shrugged off and, when space opened up before the Dutchman, so did the ground beneath Roeder's feet. Two minutes later another clipped pass from Diego Forlan ensured Phil Neville's name would be on the scoresheet with a neat chip over the sprawling, over-exposed figure of James.

A poor clearance from the goalkeeper that fell invitingly for Beckham contributed to Van Nistelrooy's second of the tie, which left West Ham five down with more than half an hour of embarrassment to endure and it was too much to expect Ole Gunnar Solskjaer would not help himself amid the carnage.

Roeder, his voice cracked with emotion, expressed a certain relief there had not been more. Despite everything, he retained his humour and dignity, although it is unlikely that despite the thread of loyalty that runs through Upton Park, he can hold on to his job.

Goals: Giggs (8) 1-0; Giggs (29) 2-0; Van Nistelrooy (48) 3-0; P Neville (50) 4-0; Van Nistelrooy (57) 5-0; Solskjaer (69) 6-0.

Manchester United (4-5-1): Barthez; G Neville, Ferdinand, O'Shea, P Neville; Beckham (Solsjkaer, 63), Keane, Scholes (Forlan, h-t), Veron (Butt, 51), Giggs; Van Nistelrooy. Substitutes not used: Brown, Carroll (gk).

West Ham United (4-4-1-1): James; Lomas, Breen (Dailly, 79), Pearce, Minto; Bowyer, Cissé (Garcia, 79), Carrick, Sinclair (Johnson, 79); Cole; Defoe. Substitutes not used: Hutchison, Van der Gouw (gk).

Referee: S Bennett (Orpington).

Bookings: Manchester Utd: Veron. West Ham: Defoe, Minto.

Man of the match: Van Nistelrooy.

Attendance: 67,181.

MANCHESTER UNITED'S BIGGEST FA CUP VICTORIES

January 1998: United bt Walsall 5-1 (fourth round, home)
Jan 1995: bt Wrexham 5-2 (R4, H)
Feb 1970: bt Northampton 8-2 (R5, A)
Feb 1969: bt Birmingham 6-2 (R5 replay, H)
Mar 1964: bt Sunderland 5-1 (R6r, N)
Mar 1963: bt Huddersfield 5-0 (R3 H)
Jan 1957: bt Wrexham 5-0 (R4, A)
Feb 1949: bt Yeovil 8-0 (R5, H)
Feb 1949: bt Bradford Park Avenue 5-0 (R4, H)
Jan 1949: bt Bournemouth 6-0 (R3, H)
Jan 1946: bt Accrington Stanley 5-1 (R3 2nd leg, H)
Jan 1928: bt Brentford 7-1 (R3, H)
Feb 1912: bt Coventry 5-1 (R2, A)
Feb 1909: bt Blackburn 6-1 (R3, H)
Feb 1906: bt Aston Villa 5-1 (R3, H)
Jan 1906: bt Staple Hill 7-2 (R1, H)
Jan 1897: bt Kettering 5-1 (R1, H)