When the obituary of Erik ten Hag’s time in charge at Manchester United comes to be written, this match could serve as exhibit A.

He might well blame the VAR for the somewhat bizarre decision to award West Ham a late penalty for a foul no one on the pitch, including the referee, appeared to notice (and frankly he might have a point).

He might point to the succession of missed chances his players served up. He might well rail against the way in which fortune – in the manner of the West Ham anthem – seems to have gone into hiding when it comes to his career.

But the fact is his team lost. And quite how they contrived to fail here for the third time under his stewardship is indicative of his time in charge – if never quite in control – at Old Trafford. Not least because they did it against a team who were not so much there for the taking as one which had appeared, in a first half of abject incompetence, to hang out the white flag.

To be fair to Ten Hag, it was in that first 45 minutes that, even as West Ham looked willing to be rolled over, United were as smart, together and organised as they have been in his time in charge. They passed quickly and imaginatively. They moved the ball at pace. Bruno Fernandes was at his quick-witted best in the middle of it all, constantly finding ways to carve open a paper-thin home defence.

West Ham handed over possession as if it were an infectious disease. And as they surrendered, so United forged chances. Loads of them. One-on-ones, shots from distance, headers from set-pieces: they could not stop serving up opportunity. West Ham’s defenders spent most of the time standing back in admiration.

But here is the thing: the visitors wasted the lot. Alejandro Garnacho smacked a shot against the crossbar, then shot wide. Rasmus Hojlund had a glorious opening blocked when it appeared easier to score. Lukasz Fabianski somehow got his hand to Casemiro’s goal-bound header from Christian Eriksen’s corner. Then there was Diogo Dalot. The full back was the most culpable of the United missers, blasting past an empty net after dinking the ball over the keeper’s head to set himself up.

“Garnacho twice, Hojlund one time, Bruno one time,” Ten Hag said when asked how on earth Dalot had managed not to score. “It is not fair to pick one player out who misses a chance.”

Not that West Ham are good at defending a lead. United quickly got one back, when Casemiro completed a series of three unchallenged headers in the West Ham box. But then came Ten Hag’s plunge into ill-fortune. The delayed VAR decision gave Bowen the chance to score from the penalty spot. Cue pandemonium in a stadium which barely an hour earlier had been poised on the lip of mutiny.

So it was that a West Ham side who appeared so poor, uncoordinated, apparently there for the taking, emerged with three points. For Manchester United the manager was able, rightly, to point out that his players should take their share of the blame. After all, it was not him out there squandering gilt-edged invitations to score. But the fact is the way that Ten Hag’s side somehow managed to lose here says everything you need to know about the current condition of this dysfunctional club.