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Match Report

Match Report: West Ham 2 Manchester City 1

You know I said I hate 12.45 kick-offs? Sod that for a game of soldiers. What a game, what a performance, what a result. And it wasn’t a fluke result, it was fully deserved. Our football was tenacious, entertaining and measured. It’s almost invidious to pick players out after a performance like that, but can anyone doubt that Alex Song was man of the match?

I was a bit worried after 20 minutes because we seemed to let them come on to us too much. I had hoped we’d be out of the traps right from the start, but nevertheless we managed to contain them. There were times after that when I wanted to kick the television due to the appalling co-commentary of Michael Owen. He’s second only to Andy Townsend in his inanities. He even reckoned Valencia’s pass across the goal to Amalfitano was a fluke. The rest of us saw it as a brilliant piece of skill.

Adrian performed miracles at times. I’m not his biggest fan but he didn’t put a foot wrong today and saved two or three dead certs. He had no chance for Silva’s goal, but his reactive saves today were out of this world. But it was our defence which also ought to be praised to the skies. All four defenders put in 8 out of 10 performances, and you need to do that against top teams like City. They threw themselves at the ball and tackled as if their lives defended on it. But they also managed to get forward too and again Cresswell and Jenkinson were great down the flanks, at times performing almost like ersatz wingers.

In midfield Alex Song stood out, as he so often has in his five games so far. But again, this was a team effort with Mark Noble putting in a great shift and Amalfitano scoring a goal – his second for the club so far. Stewart Downing could have had a couple too and he was especially effective in the first half.

And what can one say about the performances of Sakho and Valencia. Truly superlative. Valencia gets better and better as each game passes. He’s not just incredibly skilful, he causes all sorts of trouble for defenders because he is so unpredictable. Sakho wasn’t just brilliant in attack he was also excellent defensively. He plays as a team player and that’s so rare in strikers. His goal was typical for him and it’s so good to see West Ham with a striker who knows where the net is. Six goals in six Premier League games is a record that won’t be broken at West Ham for a long time. If he scores at Stoke he will have an all time Premier League record.

The statistics show that West Ham only had 30% possession and that we passed 166 times compared to Manchester City’s 451. But statistics sometimes lie. I doubt even Manchester City believe they should have won this game.

Perhaps from a West Ham point of view, the most pleasing thing is that previous West Ham teams would probably have crumbled towards the end of the game. Just as against Liverpool, this team didn’t. Man City had their chances at the end of the game but our defence performed heroically.

We have 16 points from 9 games, having scored 17 goals. We’re in fourth place, three points clear of Liverpool. If they beat Hull by 5 goals they will go above us, but even if that happens, no one can take anything away from West Ham for this superb performance. And now for the player ratings…

Adrian 8, Cresswell 8, Jenkinson 8, Reid 8, Collins 8, Song, 9, Downing 7, Noble 7, Amalfitano 7, Sakho 8, Valencia 8, Cole 6, Nolan 6

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