Manchester City 4-1 West Ham United
Premier League, Etihad Stadium, Saturday 4 January 2025, 3pm GMT
Manchester City beat West Ham United 4-1 at Etihad Stadium in the Irons' first Premier League game of 2025.
Little went the Hammers’ way with the hosts clinical with their opportunities. The damage was done before half-time as an unfortunate own goal from Vladimír Coufal opened the scoring on ten minutes before an Erling Haaland header doubled City’s lead just before the interval.
Haaland added a third on 55 minutes, then Phil Foden swept home another minutes later. Niclas Füllkrug netted a consolation late on but, in truth, Pep Guardiola’s side were deserved winners on a cold afternoon in M11.
Despite a much-changed side, with four fresh players in the starting line-up, the Hammers started brightly, with Mohammed Kudus in particular lively in the opening exchanges.
The winger, who was on target for the Irons with a sensational overhead kick on our last visit to the Etihad Stadium in May 2024, fired a few warning shots. The Ghanaian worked his way into the box early on, although he could only find the side netting from a tight angle. Moments later, our No14 skipped beyond his marker, drove into the final third and played a sweet pass for stand-in skipper Tomáš Souček to run onto, but the Czech shot wide of the target.
The fear was that the Irons could come to rue those missed opportunities, and City took the lead with their first real foray forward with an element of fortune, as Savinho’s cross took a wicked deflection off Coufal and swerved past a wrong-footed Alphonse Areola into the near corner of the net.
Despite the blow of falling behind so early, West Ham progressively worked their way back into the game. The Irons were incensed when Crysencio Summerville appeared to have pinched the ball off Manuel Akanji, leaving him one-on-one with Stefan Ortega, but referee Michael Salisbury blew for a free-kick. Soon after, we came close to equalising when a slick move by Lucas Paquetá and Summerville culminated in Aaron Wan-Bissaka bending narrowly off target from range.
Back stormed Manchester City, and only an excellent save from Areola prevented us from going 2-0 down after 33 minutes. Haaland used all his strength to hold off West Ham defenders with his back to goal and set up Bernardo Silva, whose shot Areola did well to save with his feet. The West Ham goalkeeper was called into action again in the 39th minute, when he was at full stretch to tip a fizzing Rico Lewis effort over the bar.
West Ham’s frustration grew further three minutes before half-time when City doubled their lead. Savinho shifted the ball away from Coufal outside the box, onto his left foot and chipped to the back post, where Haaland leapt to head in from six yards.
It was always going to be a difficult afternoon thereafter but the Hammers, to their credit, kept fighting, and Coufal went close to netting his first Premier League goal when the ball broke kindly to the Czech on the edge of the box, but his rising drive was tipped away by Ortega.
For all the good work in the first ten minutes of the second period, 2-0 soon became 3-0. Savinho started the move with a defence-splitting pass into the path of Haaland, who lifted the ball over the onrushing Areola.
Things went from bad to worse when, three minutes later, a misplaced pass from Kudus went straight to Kevin De Bruyne on the edge of the box and the Belgian squared the ball for Foden to slot home City’s fourth.
After Souček’s flicked effort was comfortably gathered by Ortega, the Hammers pulled one back on the counter-attack as a move ended with Souček squaring the ball across the face for Füllkrug to slide home.
The Irons went close to pulling another one back late on, most notably when Souček headed powerfully and narrowly wide from a corner.
However the scoring was done and West Ham will need to bounce back from successive defeats when we return to action in the Premier League at home to Fulham on Tuesday 14 January.
Manchester City: Ortega, Lewis, Akanji, Aké (Walker 61), Gvardiol, Kovačić (Gündoğan 61), De Bruyne ©, Silva, Foden, Savinho (McAtee 80), Haaland (Grealish 84)
Subs not used: Carson (GK), Simpson-Pusey, O'Reilly, Nunes, Doku
Goals: Coufal 10 (og), Haaland 42, 55, Foden 58
Booked: Kovačić, Walker
West Ham United: Areola, Coufal, Todibo (Mavropanos 53), Kilman, Wan-Bissaka, Álvarez (Ings 87), Souček ©, Paquetá, Kudus (Luis Guilherme 72), Summerville, Füllkrug
Subs not used: Foderingham (GK), Cresswell, Scarles, Soler, Rodríguez, Irving
Goal: Füllkrug 71
Booked: Füllkrug, Lopetegui
Referee: Michael Salisbury
Attendance: 52,737
