West Ham co-owner David Gold has sympathy for Manchester United vice-chairman Ed Woodward over abuse from the club's own fans.

Premier League chiefs have all agreed to clamp down and issue lifetime bans after Manchester United executive vice-chairman Woodward's house was firebombed by so-called supporters last month.

Gold and co-chairman David Sullivan were targeted last season when fed-up fans went on the rampage during a home game with Burnley in March 2018 as they tried to attack the directors' box, reports the Mirror.

Gold said: “I know exactly what Ed's experienced. I've experienced it four or five times and it's by a minute percentage, it's a couple of hundred people.

“The Burnley game was a terrible experience, I couldn't tell you. My 10-year-old granddaughter said: 'Grandpa what do they mean? You're not a liar are you grandpa?' I mean, what do you say to a 10-year-old? It was dreadful.

“The league will come together. We will come together as a unit to protect the likes of Ed and to punish those perpetrators. It cannot be tolerated.

“Manchester United are a big club, Ed Woodward is a big figure in the game. He cannot be worried about his wife and children.

“In my mind you've got a couple of hundred belligerents who want to burn your house down... metaphorically... and those 200 will gather people who are listening. If someone wants to make it... then it's a thousand. Ok, that's fine.

“So I'm walking by and I wonder 'what's that all about?' We had this the other day, it starts out with belligerents but then it gets up to 800 because people stop and listen. They're not belligerents."