Superb City humiliate Hammers

Manchester City are safely through to the fourth round of the FA Cup after they destroyed West Ham 5-0 at the London Stadium.

The game was over by half-time as City scored three goals in 10 minutes, Yaya Toure firing home a controversial penalty on 33 minutes before a Havard Nordtveit own goal doubled Pep Guardiola's side's advantage.

David Silva, who was excellent on the night, made it three to effectively wrap things up two minutes before half-time.

Sergio Aguero, restored to the starting line-up after being a substitute against Burnley, deflected home Toure's shot on 50 minutes before Jon Stones headed in late on.

Slaven Bilic's men should have actually drawn level early on but Sofiane Feghouli somehow shot wide of an empty net after Willy Caballero had palmed Michail Antonio's shot right into his path, a real 'miss of the season' contender.

However, City were simply several levels above West Ham on the night and the manner of the Hammers' capitulation will be very worrying for their manager.

Both managers demonstrated how seriously they are taking the world’s oldest cup competition this year by naming very strong sides, Bilic making three changes to the XI who lost to Manchester United last time out while the visitors made five to the side which beat Burnley 2-1 on Monday.

City started stronger, taking control of possession and West Ham needed a superb last-ditch tackle from Winston Reid to deny Raheem Sterling a clear shot at goal from six yards out.

Despite the returning Adrian making some smart stops, City took the lead on 32 minutes, Angelo Ogbonna, perhaps a little harshly, penalised for tripping Pablo Zabaleta and Toure slotted home coolly the resulting spot-kick.

The home side’s heads dropped and within 11 minutes the game was over as a contest.

First, Nordtveit bundled home the ball into his net with Sterling ready to finish what was a fine flowing City move and two minutes later Sterling turned provider, his cross finding Silva unmarked on the edge of the six-yard box, the Spaniard had time to control before calmly sidefooting past the despairing drive of Adrian.

Any fanciful notions West Ham may have had about the most unlikely of comebacks were quickly destroyed five minutes after the restart when Sterling found Toure and the Ivorian’s shot was diverted into the net from a couple of yards out by Aguero.

It was too much for many of the unhappy home support who began to make for the exits.

For those who stayed, they were forced to endure a long half where their side never looked like grabbing a consolation goal and City passed the ball around at walking pace.

At times, the visitors sped-up their play and Adrian was called into action again; there was nothing he could do however, to prevent Stones powering home a header late on for his first goal for the club, capping a miserable first FA Cup experience for the hosts at their new home.

Source: ISNTV

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