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MOTD- Manchester City 6-0 West Ham United

By on January 8, 2014

It was such a one-sided match that it was quite a surprise that Manchester City were limited to six goals.  They put six past both Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur at the Etihad, and rattled seven goals away at Norwich, so it was astonishing that City only scored once more after Alvaro Negredo made it five over West Ham United with a little more than a third of the match left in the game.  Really, their thirty-four shots should have converted into eight or nine goals.

Yet it is what it is, and City manager Manuel Pellegrini certainly won’t be complaining considering his side all but booked their place in the Capital One Cup finals not matter what the result of the second leg is.  However, on the other side of things there will be a lot of complaining from West Ham fans in the direction of manager Sam Allardyce, who will be lucky to remain in his managerial position come morning after this loss followed up a 5-0 pounding from Nottingham Forest, a club which had won just two of their last five matches in the English Championship.  But what will be even more troubling for Allardyce is that his side’s performance tonight was worse than it was on Sunday at the City Ground in Nottingham.

City were thoroughly dominant thought the match, and could have been up just five minutes into the game when Javi Garcia headed a corner narrowly wide at the near post.  The home side waited six more minutes (yes, six WHOLE minutes) until they found the back of the net for the first time, which was surprising based on the fact of how easy it was to do.  Yaya Toure, under no pressure whatsoever, lobbed an inch-perfect seventy yard pass over the West Ham defense to the run of Negredo, who sent a first-time volley on the turn into the back of the net from fifteen yards.  You know, as you do.

From there West Ham’s defense completely crumbled, and after David Silva’s rocket from twenty yards was pushed away by Adrian and the Spanish goalkeeper somehow tipped Samir Nasri’s low drive around the corner Negredo made it two in the twenty-fifth minute.  This time it was Edin Dzeko who cut West Ham’s back-line open with a neat through ball, which Negredo latched onto and chipped above Adrian into the top corner of the net.  Toure provided the third in the fortieth minute by curling a low effort into the bottom corner from twelve yards (we measured with a yard stick, just to make it clear) after romping all the way from the halfway line into the West Ham box.

It might have seemed impossible, but City somehow became even more dominant as the second half began, with Pablo Zabaleta nodding Nasri’s cross just wide before Negredo bagged his hat-trick just three minutes into the half.  Wonderful one-touch play from City around the edge of the West Ham penalty area concluded with Silva’s miscued pass deflecting into the path of Negredo, who coolly sent a left footed curler into the bottom left corner from twelve yards.

Nonetheless West Ham fans were still chanting, although the festivities more or less concluded when Dzeko poked Nasri’s low cross from the left home on the half hour mark to make it five.  The Bosnian injured himself in the finish, but put the icing on the cake for City by curling a fifteen yard beauty into the top left corner of the net right before the full time whistle blew to make it misery for West Ham.
Man of the Match: Alvaro Negredo

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.