City end West Ham's unbeaten run

Manchester City 2 West Ham 1

The game hasn’t inspired the locals to turn out in the Worlds End pub in Stroud Green at 12.45pm. We have a choice of numerous empty tables, but Matt and Lisa are there and the Black Rock ale is good.

It’s good to see the 23^rd minute marked with applause for Marc-Vivien Foe, who died ten years ago. Not too much happens in the first half hour. Carroll gets in a decent cross with no one on the end of it. West Ham have a corner and Diame has a good hit saved by Hart. Aguero hits the post after a rather fortunate rebound reaches him inside the box.

City take the lead after 28 minutes as Toure, Silva and Nasri play a series of intricate and unchallenged one-twos and find Aguero in the box, who taps home. A quality goal, but Reid should have been tighter. A couple of minutes later Jaaskelainen makes a decent double stop to deny Nasri and Zabaleta.

We actually have quite a lot of the game in the second half, but don’t create many chances. City should score a third when Nasri misses an inviting cross, while West Ham’s best chance is a Collins snapshot wide after Jarvis’s effort is blocked.

Carlton Cole, Matt Taylor and Jack Collison all come on. The game is settled on 83 minutes when Yaya Toure fires him an unstoppable effort into the top corner from the edge of the area.

“Carlton Cole is leaving it late to get his hat-trick,” muses Matt. But Andy Carroll does connect well with Gary O’Neil’s cross and Hart has to stop to turn away his header, injuring himself in the process.

The Hammers gain a consolation in the fourth minute of injury time when Carroll chests down Demel’s cross and fires in a shot that gores straight through Joe Hart. It’s his seventh goal for the Irons — a decent return from 21 appearances.

Oh well. Bit of an end-of-season feel to the game, but at least we gave them a game and getting something at the former champions was always going to be difficult. If we can get some points from Newcastle and Reading then hopefully we can overtake Swansea into ninth place.