Manchester City’s flawless start to the season under new manager Pep Guardiola continues, with a comfortable win against West Ham at the Ethiad.
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“I did not see the incident”, Guardiola told reporters and neither did West Ham’s manager Slaven Bilic. I reacted because we wanted to make a sub.
Silva carried the ball forward from deep and spread wide for Nolito, whose first time ball across goal was tucked home clinically by Sterling.
The hosts started in emphatic fashion, with Sergio Aguero managing to come close with a low shot before Sterling opened the scoring after just seven minutes.
Eleven minutes later, City doubled their lead when Kevin De Bruyne arrowed in a free-kick from the right and Fernandinho rose to direct his impressive header into the top corner – a day short of the anniversary of his last top-flight strike.
However, Aguero also appeared to throw an elbow at defender Winston Reid and, if judged to have been deliberate, may face retrospective punishment.
“We were going to change the centre-half anyway to go four at the back”. It was only in the last minute that Raheem Sterling was able to find the back of the net, but it was enough to secure a very important victory for the Sky Blues.
He said: “You can’t say City didn’t deserve to win, but it was a game of two halves”. Our fans enjoyed it and we are happy.
“I think the first half was really good”. They lost John Stones to injury, West Ham tinkered their system, the game turned on its head with the goal from West Ham and the longer the game went on [you thought] this might be one of those days when West Ham end up nicking something. Credit to the boys, they had a cracking build-up on the left-hand side and it was my chance to get in there and get into a good position – luckily I did.
A first half display that threatened to provide the Londoners with a drubbing suddenly evaporated when the visitors clawed their way back into the game.
But it was a far from threatening effort and Gaston Ramirez replied in kind early in the second half before the Baggies’ Craig Dawson headed wide of the target.
Manuel Lanzini did return off the bench for Sunday’s defeat against Manchester City and with more of his squad expected to be fit after the global break, Bilic has warned his side will come back stronger.
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Zaza scored five Serie A goals in 19 games last season and also struck Juve’s victor in their friendly win over West Ham at the London Stadium earlier this month.
