West Ham 1 Man City 1
Nuno knows how how to set up a defensive team. The last place Man City probably wanted to go after getting smoked by Real Madrid in midweek was the London Stadium where West ham are fighting for their lives to get out of the relegation places in the Premier League, with Pep Guardiola in the stands after his outburst on the touchline against Newcastle last week City looked devoid of ideas in the first half until Bernardo Silva’s cross turned shot looped over Hermansen to give City the lead in the 31st minute. The perfect time to score for City as this would force West Ham to come out and try to attack which they did very little off in the first 30 minutes of the game, then out of nowhere Bowen swings a corner in that Donnarumma completely flaps at giving Mavropanos a free header to score just three minutes after City scored the opener. A disaster for City who never recovered from that set back for the rest of the game, they made a push for it at the end of the game as Guehi missed a huge chance in added time but West Ham were able to hold on and climb out of the relegation places with a point.
West Ham aren’t going down. I’ve seen enough to tell me that West Ham aren’t getting relegated this season, I worried about them going forward today without the pace of Summerville going forward who was injured but defensively they were resolute to get a huge point on the day. You can see the togetherness in the West Ham side at the minute to defend for their lives that you don’t see at the likes of Spurs at the minute and that result doesn’t do anything to help Spurs who go to Anfield tomorrow, going forward West Ham weren’t great today as Pablo and Castellanos struggled to get into the game but they ran all game and that’s what West Ham need when they are playing the bigger teams for the rest of the season. Axel Disasi has been immense since joining from Chelsea and that whole backline was great today limiting City to only a few chances for the 90, a huge point for West Ham who now find themselves in 17th although Forest to have a game in hand against Fulham tomorrow.
Title over for Man City? With Arsenal winning earlier on City had to win today as they are now nine points off Arsenal with a game in hand, on the day City were poor and gave West Ham very little to be worried about throughout the game, I did think that starting Marmoush and Haaland together was the right choice but Cherki had to start as he’s Cities best creator by far at the minute and came on too late in my opinion for Omar Marmoush in the 60th minute. Erling Haaland had yet another quiet game in what’s becoming a pretty mediocre 2026 from him so far, he’s just not getting involved in matches where Cherki isn’t playing and as soon as the Frenchmen came on he set Haaland up for his only real chance of the game that Hermansen saved well. It’s been a disastrous week for City that has now seen them most likely out of the two biggest prizes they are after in the Premier League and Champions League, is Pep going to go out on a whimper at Man City?
Nuno Espirito Santo deserves real credit for the turnaround at West Ham. West Ham were in the depths of despair before Nuno came in and even in those first few games were it didn’t really look like Nuno had got his message through to the players yet, since then West Ham have become a really solid team, especially at the back where West Ham are conceding far less goals than at the start of the season under Graham Potter which leaves them with a good chance of staying up this year, it’s never really pretty under Nuno but he knows how to make a team hard to beat and we saw that tonight as one of the best attacks in the league struggled to break down his team other than a pretty lucky goal from Bernardo Silva that looped over Hermansen in the first half, I wonder if Nuno is going to be a long-term appointment for West Ham who always seem to want a manager that plays ‘pretty’ football instead of a Nuno or David Moyes, I suppose we’ll see in the summer.
What a day for Arsenal. As if the day couldn’t get any better for Arsenal as Max Dowman becomes the youngest scorer in Premier League history at 16, City continue to look poor and look so vulnerable at the back at times even tonight against a West Ham team that didn’t really want to attack all night. Arsenal have an opportunity to heap more misery on City next week in the Carabao Cup Final where Mikel Arteta is seeking to win his first trophy since the FA Cup against Chelsea in 2020. Arsenal have one hand on the Premier League and could make it a historic season with the Carabao Cup Final next week and big games to come in the FA Cup and Champions League over the next few weeks, it hasn’t been pretty from Arsenal over the last few weeks but they won’t care at the end of the season if they are picking up trophies come May. City have to find a way to bounce back and what better than winning the first trophy of the season against Arsenal at Wembley next week, looking forward to it.