City turn a difficult afternoon into smooth progress

RUN to the hills, run for your lives.

- SIMON BAJKOWSKI

Iron Maiden blasted the message out at half-time at the London Stadium and how David Moyes would have if he could have.

West Ham were 1-0 up in a battle of European champions but knew the home side would struggle to outperform the odds.

What could have been a City result that showed signs of coming against Sheffield United and Fulham instead turned into another show of strength from the Treble winners.

This looked to be one of City's better performances of the season in what is already their seventh game in all competitions, yet for the first time in the Premier League they fell behind. At a ground where they have toiled in many a recent contest, all the good work had been undone in one go.

It would be easy to dismiss the West Ham goal as a classic example of the latest projects at City bedding in.

Summer signing Jeremy Doku failed to control a pass, summer signing Josko Gvardiol was then nutmegged by Jarrod Bowen and out of position as Vladimir Coufal drove into the space where the former Leipzig defender should have been and crossed for James WardProwse to stoop and head past Ederson.

Obviously, both City recruits could  have done better in that play and will undoubtedly improve as they spend more time on the training pitches at the Etihad Campus.

At the same time, aside from that they were two of City's better players in a decent team performance.