West Ham grab away-day treble with Man City win
Victor Moses (2nd l): Celebrates his opener
West Ham claimed an unlikely treble on Saturday evening as they earned an impressive 2-1 away win at Premier League leaders Manchester City.
City had a 100 per cent record going into The Etihad clash, but goals from Victor Moses and Diafra Sakho put the Hammers 2-0 up after a half an hour and Kevin De Bruyne’s second-half reply was not enough for City to rescue a point.
It means Slaven Bilic’s men have chalked up brilliant away wins at Arsenal, Liverpool and now Manchester City in their first three away games to find themselves second in the table behind their hosts.
City, who lost to Juventus in the Champions League on Tuesday and lost influential midfielder David Silva to injury in the warm-up, quickly found themselves two down.
West Ham started confidently and stunned the league leaders inside six minutes. Collecting a pass from Dimitri Payet, Moses accepted an invitation to shoot from distance and fired the ball into the bottom left corner of Joe Hart’s net.
It was the first Premier League goal that Manuel Pellegrini’s men had conceded so far this term, but the Hammers were not finished and doubled their lead just past the half hour when Sakho turned in from close range following a goalmouth scramble.
It wasn’t undeserved for West Ham, although City had threatened. Sergio Aguero was in uncharacteristically wasteful mood when he beat goalkeeper Adrian to the ball before shooting wide, while Nicolas Otamendi headed over from a Jesus Navas corner.
They were back in the game on the stroke of half-time, though. De Bruyne found some space and buried a 20-yard strike beyond the despairing Adrian.
The West Ham defence would have been expecting a second-half onslaught and that was exactly what followed.
Yaya Toure twice went close, while Adrian produced a fine stop to keep out another header from Otamendi, who was making his Premier League debut.
However, there was no way through a doggedly drilled Hammers defence, and Bilic’s men were able to hang on to claim another scalp and subject City to a second defeat inside a week.