City Watch: Blues start 2025 with a win

Manchester City were back in action last weekend after picking up their second win in 14 games in their final match of the calendar year.

After closing out their 2024 in torrid fashion, the Blues were looking to open this year’s account on a more positive note.  

City were host to West Ham united on Saturday and the struggling East London club were looking to regain form coming off the back of a 5-0 thumping from league leaders Liverpool, putting Hammers head boss Julen Lopetegui under even more pressure. 

Both teams would be without key players leading up to the match with West Ham’s captain Jarrod Bowen missing from the match-day squad after suffering a foot fracture in their defeat to Liverpool the previous week. City would still be without their midfield talisman Rodri as well as John Stones, Ederson, Ruben Dias and Oscar Bobb all joining the Spaniard for a spell on the sidelines. 

The Game started out in the favour of West Ham with the London club applying pressure on the home side with several counterattacks causing City all sorts of trouble. On another day, City could have found themselves 3-0 down before half-time after squandered chances from Mohammed Kudus and Thomas Soucek.  

Fortunately for City, the Hammers were wasteful in front of goal and the Blues capitalised on that profligacy in the 10th minute Savinho drilled a driven ball into the area which found its way into the back of the net thanks to a wicked deflection off Vladimir Coufal. 

City kept up pressure, seeing shots from Rico Lewis and Bernardo Silva saved. But it wasn’t all one-way traffic as West Ham’s fast paced counters persisted throughout the first half, however similarly poor end-product meant the Hammers couldn’t find a breakthrough.  

City extended their lead on the cusp of half-time when Savinho once again skimmed past Coufal, who struggled with the Brazilian all game, and produced a superb deep cross to a grateful Erling Haaland who nodded in from close range. 

City started the second half strong, and it would go from bad to worse for West Ham as man of the match Savinho found himself with acres of space to run into, stretching the West Ham defence before slotting a cute through-ball between the lines to City’s number 9 and Haaland made no mistake, with a West Ham defender on his back, calmly chipped the ball over the approaching Alphonse Areola for his second of the afternoon. 

Mohammed Kudus would turn into the villain for the Irons minutes later after he played a poor back pass to Alvarez who struggled to control it before the loose ball was nicked off his feet by Kevin De Bruyne who slotted it into the path of Phil Foden to net his second of the campaign. 

In typical City fashion, a clean sheet wasn't meant to be as West Ham’s wastefulness in front of goal ended with Niklas Füllkrug slotting home a quick counterattack which was met with a cascade of boos and grumbles from the home crowd who weren’t happy with City’s inability to keep a clean sheet at the Etihad. 

Despite a spirited late fightback from the Irons, City well and truly dispatched the London team who have since sacked head coach Julen Lopetegui after just seven wins in 22 games. It wasn’t vintage City by any stretch but 3 points and back-to-back wins in the league for the first time since October certainly gave the blues something to smile about.  

City open their 2025 account with a win and now that the January transfer window is open, they will look to strengthen their thin and ageing squad with reported targets Omar Marmoush, of Eintracht Frankfurt, and Abdukodir Khusanov, of Ligue 1 club Lens on the verge of securing deals with the Manchester outfit before the month ends. Although it looks a mammoth task to overturn the 12-point deficit from top spot, one thing you should never do is write off Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City.