Manchester City stunned as West Ham put end to their perfect start

Slaven Bilic’s West Ham are turning into away specialists. Three of their four victories this season have been on their travels and as the wins have come at the Emirates, Anfield and now the Etihad, no one could accuse them of going about it the easy way.

This was not quite as gobsmacking as the first two, except that Manchester City did happen to be top of the league with a 100% record before kick-off and even quite late in the game a first defeat of the season did not look likely. West Ham spent much of the second half penned back defending their area doughtily while their opponents played pinball around them.

On another day City might have managed to salvage something: they certainly had enough possession in inviting areas, but the visitors held out to take the points thanks to the lead they took in the first half, before the home side had fully awoken to the danger.

City’s perfect start to the Premier League season included five clean sheets in their opening five wins, yet it took West Ham a fraction more than five minutes to put a dent in that record. Taking a pass from Dimitri Payet and turning towards goal, Victor Moses sized up his options from 25 yards out before beating Joe Hart with a low drive into the goalkeeper’s bottom-left corner.

It was not the start City would have been hoping for after losing in the Champions League here in midweek, especially as they had lost David Silva to an injury sustained in the warmup. Jesús Navas was hastily promoted to the right wing and Kevin De Bruyne made his first City start in the centre of the advanced midfield trio behind Sergio Agüero.

The Argentina striker had missed most of the Juventus game with a knee problem, but started here and could have put his side back on level terms three minutes after West Ham took the lead. Agüero seemed to have done all the hard work in pouncing on Aaron Cresswell’s mistake and reaching the ball before Adrián, who had raced out of his area in an attempt to intercept, yet with the goalkeeper stranded and only a couple of defenders guarding the line the City forward still contrived to miss the target.

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