West Ham United were handed another resounding defeat by Manchester City for the second time in three weeks, with City coming out 4-0 victors.

It was a stellar performance in the first-half from Pep Guardiola’s side, with goals from Kevin De Bruyne, David Silva and Gabriel Jesus rounding an excellent 45 minutes from the Blue side of Manchester.

The second period didn’t have the same domination from the visitors with Jesus having a decent opportunity, but managed to add to the scoreline with Yaya Toure’s penalty in the 66th minute. The Hammers started to come into the game towards the end, with Michail Antonio’s disallowed goal and a chance from Robert Snodgrass but it wasn’t enough to prevent an embarrassing defeat.

Great start to the contest

The Hammers have been in fine form in the league recently, but will have been concerned after their last visit from City earlier in the month and the visitors produced a similar performance in the first period.

It only took 16 minutes for City to find the back of the net, it was a good move led by De Bruyne who bombed down the field. The Belgian gave to Jesus, who teed it up for De Bruyne on the edge of the area as he coolly slotted it into the bottom corner with Darren Randolph rooted to the spot.

It was two only four minutes later, and once again it was an excellent move from City. Leroy Sane did excellently to put it through the legs of Sam Byram, and having the best of debutant Jose Fonte as he got to the by-line. The German’s ball across was deflected by Randolph, but he helped it into the path of Silva who easily slotted into an empty net.

Wrapping it up

The Hammers had proved ineffective throughout the half as they looked to get back into the contest, but it was all over with six minutes to play as City grabbed their third.

The chance looked to have gone as De Bruyne missed the ball completely, Pedro Obiang looked to create an attack but his poor pass was snapped up by Sane. He played it across to Raheem Sterling, he played it across the face of goal where Jesus was waiting to tap home his first goal in a City shirt.

Keeping a 100 percent record

The second half didn’t have the same intensity with a half chance from Jesus, but they made sure of the result when they were handed a penalty in the 66th minute.

De Bruyne was at it once again as he played an excellent curved ball into the feet of Sterling, he did well to get the best of Fonte with his cutback and went down under the challenge of the Portuguese defender.

Kevin Friend had no hesitation in pointing to spot to round off a poor debut for Fonte, Toure stepped up and he just managed to keep his perfect penalty record as his effort creeped into the bottom corner despite the touch of Randolph.

Looking for some consolation

Slaven Bilic’s began to get into the game as the clock ticked down, as they looked for a shred of consolation.

They thought that they had a goal in the 81st minute when Snodgrass played an excellent ball into Antonio, the club’s top scorer had it in the net but the flag was rightfully raised for offside.

Snodgrass may have only had a cameo but he was proving dangerous, he nearly had a chance as he was through on goal but Willy Caballero was quick off his line to get a hand on it as the Scotsman looked to go around him.

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About the author
Danial  Kennedy
Award-winning sports journalism graduate. Currently studying a PR Masters at the University of Sunderland. Writing for VAVEL since August 2014. Twitter - @ddkjournalism.