English Premier League: Hammer blow for Manchester City

West Ham claim 2-1 win to end league leader’s perfect start to the season

LONDON: The seemingly invincible Manchester City lost their 100 per cent record to West Ham United on Saturday after the Hammers held on to beat the league leaders 2-1 at The Etihad.

West Ham became the first team to breach the City defence after Manuel Pellegrini’s men had kept five clean sheets on the trot. The Londoners have now claimed unlikely wins at Arsenal, Liverpool and City but coach Slaven Bilic is refusing to get carried away with the early season optimism. “There will be ups and downs here at West Ham — this result is a major surprise and nine points from the first three away games sound like a dream, not a plan. But there’s nothing wrong with a dream,” he said.

The Croat felt the victory was deserved. “We deserved it for the way we played in the first half and the way we were fighting in the second, but this was a different game to the ones at the Emirates or Anfield,” he said. “This was much harder.”

Chelsea loanee Victor Moses fired in a 20-metre drive after only six minutes as former Porto centre-back duo Eliaquim Mangala and Nicolas Otamendi — paired in the enforced absence of skipper Vincent Kompany through injury — were a little slow in closing him down.

West Ham then doubled their lead from a corner when Diafra Sakho scrambled home after 31 minutes; albeit in a slightly controversial manner as replays showed Aleksandar Kolarov had managed to prevent the ball from going out for a corner.



City, who were beaten 2-1 at home by Juventus in the Champions League on Tuesday, hit back just before halftime when  £55 million signing Kevin de Bruyne scored his first goal for the club on his first start.

Although City laid siege to the West Ham goal for almost the entire second half and had over 27 attempts at goal, West Ham survived for their first away win at City since April 2003.

Pellegrini was left lamenting the way his side conceded the two goals and then failed to score. “This is football. You need to score to win. We let in two easy goals and we must be more concentrated. We had so many attempts but did not score,” he said. “We were too rushed in the second half but when you go two goals down you play like that.”

Son rises in North London

A well-taken second half goal by new-signing Heung-Min Son gave Tottenham Hotspur a narrow 1-0 win over Crystal Palace at White Hart Lane.

The win was Tottenham’s second in a row by the same scoreline and their season finally seems to be up and running after they failed to win their first four games and languished in the relegation zone. The North Londoners are now level on points with Palace but will stay below them due to fewer goals scored. 

Published in The Express Tribune, September 21^st,  2015.

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