GUARD OF DISHONOUR
Manchester City 3 West Ham 0
A set piece, a break away and a wicked deflection. Not the way I would want my side to go back to the top of the Premier League. Still, any bottle of port in a storm.
City look a little nervous at the beginning of the game, knowing only a win can return them to first place in the PL. There is also the small matter of Erling Haaland’s assault on the 25 year-plus record of Alan Shearer and Andy Cole’s 34 PL goals in a season. Haaland needs just one strike tonight, but Angelo Ogbonna and Vladimir Coufal’s stirling efforts in defence this half look likely to deny his achieving it tonight.
Moyes has set his side up to play the way they have done in recent 1-0 defeats at Liverpool and Manchester United, a policy that is only likely to ever extract a single point from any given game. The point would be welcome tonight, of course, but as an approach it looks unlikely to challenge the impressive stat that Moyes has not won an away fixture at the grounds of any of the top six sides in the PL in over 400 attempts as manager. Even were they to grab a point tonight the achievement is unlikely to rescue Moyes from the P45 waiting on his dressing room table after the final game of the season. That fixture may well prove to be a game in early June in the Czech Republic, but a P45 is a P45, however hard you try to find a piece of glossy photo paper to print it on.
Over the half time break we speculate about when City will score. Not one person around me thinks Hammers can hang on, an observation certainly influenced by the absence of Rice, Zouma and Aguerd, a familiar memory of fatigued hope descending on all of us in the away supporter section as the teams run out for the second half.
When the City goal comes on 50 minutes, it proves a tragedy of miserably epic proportion. Downes, who has been christened The OnField Moyes for his unquestioning subservience to these negative tactics, loses possession as he attempts to find someone to pass back to, his error forcing him into committing a foul on Haaland, that gets him booked. The ensuing free kick from Mahrez is chipped onto the head of the unmarked Aké, who beats Fabianski comprehensively with a gentle impudent nod.
Hammers consolidate for a twenty minute period after the breach, but when one of their rare attacks breaks down, Grealish is released like a greased piglet into the freedom of the West Ham end of the pitch where he finds Haaland, who shrugs off the substitute Johnson like an irritating fly before fiendishly flipping the ball home over Fabianski. Even the Hammers’ fans stand to applaud his remarkable Premier League goal-scoring achievement.
The final goal follows the substitution of Julien Alvarez for Phil Foden, and the local hero and somewhat star substitute promptly cracks home a piledriver of a shot, hit straight at Fabianski, but taking the requisite deflection to beat him and establish an unchallengeable three goal advantage.
All in all, a totally predictable result, but one that tickles the memory of Hammers’ last win at the Etihad in late 2015 under Slaven Bilic, when goals from Sakho and the on loan Victor Moses beat a City side blooding their new signing Kevin De Bruyne, who scored on debut, 2-1. City were that afternoon managed by Manuel Pellegrini, a man who would go on to manage West Ham spectacularly badly a few years later.
Irons.
1 Lucasz Fabianski, 33 Emerson, 3 Aaron Cresswell, 5 Vladimir Coufal, 23 Thilo Kehrer, 41 Angelo Ogbonna (captain), 11 Lucas Paquetá, 8 Pablo Fornals, 12 Flynn Downes, 9 Michail Antonio, 20 Jarrod Bowen
Substitutes: 22 Saïd Benrahma, 2 Ben Johnson, 18 Danny Ings
