They used to come here for a good pillage. A lovely place for the looters, West Ham, a spot for padding the numbers and reinforcing old messages about those who give kickings and those who take them. But these are strange times and maybe they are changing times, too.
Because, really, this was a game for strengthening newer ideas. It was a game that built on the thought that West Ham have gone round a bend. That David Moyes has achieved a breakthrough across four unbeaten games against good and excellent sides, taking eight points from a stretch when many wagers would have them collecting none.
Before any other business, that warrants credit and attention.
But then you consider Manchester City, and the riddle of how they aren’t the full picnic right now. That they are not the force of recent years is no great observation, but it is the continued slide and the direction of travel which makes you wonder.
It is the sight of such a strong attack failing to get a proper shot off in the entirety of the first half, and it is the recurrence of flaws at the back, which surfaced again in the course of Michail Antonio scoring a marvellous first-half goal for 1-0.
The strike was really quite something, and notable too because since the end of lockdown in June only Harry Kane has scored more in the Premier League than the 12 of Antonio. Good for him, and great for West Ham.
But there were signs in its creation, in the failure to track a key run by Tomas Soucek, that make you question, even at this early stage, if Pep Guardiola’s side have the defensive foundations to make a better title challenge than their previous one.
Putting aside their walloping against Leicester, we saw those cracks against Leeds, against Arsenal, and against Porto – the ones in this game were more subtle, but it is a pattern of behaviour, and even with the madness of the fixture scheduling, it can’t all be blamed on fatigue. Guardiola leant that way in his analysis, but plainly it is deeper.
Fatigue alone is not responsible for the end of a run of nine wins against West Ham, and the break to a sequence that saw City amass a 22-1 aggregate in their previous five games at the London Stadium. Fatigue is also not the sole reason why Guardiola has failed to reach at least 10 points from five games for the first time in 11 years.
Fatigue is relevant in all of that, of course. And it is also tied to their injury situation, which got worse with Sergio Aguero’s exit at half-time with a hamstring issue, and likewise Guardiola’s decision to name an unchanged side for the first time since October 2017.
But how much sympathy will Guardiola get from rivals? How much can he expect for issues that saw him field only half of his preferred defence, and yet still come up with four names who cost more than £160million?
He hasn’t asked for any violins so much as pointed out the harshness of the fixtures for those with European commitments, but if any squad is equipped to ride that storm, then surely it is City.
Their injuries here were such that they were missing six first-teamers before kick-off. His hope was that one of Nathan Ake, Aymeric Laporte and Kevin De Bruyne might recover sufficiently to return but De Bruyne alone made that step, and only as far as a place on the bench.
Ominously, for all the stretching of resources, particularly in defence, there was no start for John Stones, snubbed in favour of a player in Eric Garcia who doesn’t wish to be there. It’s a troubling situation.
Of those on the pitch, eyebrows can be raised about West Ham goal which, for all its magnificence, was an example of City’s defensive troubles.
Why, for instance, did two men watch Soucek chase a loose ball to the line instead of going in pursuit? They had appealed for a handball on his previous touch, but in the absence of a challenge he was free to control, turn and roll back to Vladimir Coufal, which set in motion the cross for Antonio that led to the finish.
A brilliant goal, but Guardiola will look at its creation.
The rest of the half was largely inconsequential, in either direction. The only observation of note was that West Ham’s defence was excellent, with none of the errors that allowed Tottenham a massive early lead prior to last weekend’s comeback.
Guardiola’s response was to hook the injured Aguero for Foden at half-time and Raheem Sterling became the point of the attack. Immediately there was more life pulsing through City, and more mobility.
Rodri opened the half with a shot that deflected over, and then came the goal, which owed plenty to Joao Cancelo, who beat Coufal and cut back to Foden. With a touch off his left he controlled before turning and finishing with the same foot.
City were stronger on the stretch and made the more deliberate effort to chase a win. De Bruyne was introduced and had a free-kick saved, Sterling also went clean through in the final five minutes and shot straight at Lukasz Fabianski, and Mahrez fluffed two others.
Once upon a time, City would have hammered West Ham with those chances. And West Ham would have wilted. Not this season, it would seem.
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Source: m.allfootballapp.com