Manchester City suffers first BPL loss of season, falls to West Ham

As it happened, City’s flawless record fell, smashed to pieces by a collection of galvanised Hammers, snorting and super-charged at first and defending desperately by the end.

Goals from Victor Moses and Diafra Sakho did the damage in the first half, but Kevin de Bruyne’s strike on the stroke of half-time left Bilic’s men in for a battle after the restart.

Largely echoing the thoughts of manager Manuel Pellegrini, he explained.

It will be a tough task for Manchester City since West Ham had impressive wins on the road this season, so there would be no doubt about their capability to capture a win at the Etihad Stadium.

“Yes it was frustrating”, Pellegrini said. “We have defended with concentration and intensity in our last two games and we conceded two easy goals”. We knew it would be a hard game at home – they have beaten some big teams, like Arsenal and Liverpool, so we had to be aware.

The Belgium global picked up possession of the ball deep in West Ham’s half and after making space for himself, the midfielder beat Adrian with a well-struck shot from distance to bring the home side right back into the contest. We had so many attempts but did not score.

He said: “We never believed that because we won five games we were the champions of the Premier League. We must concentrate more”. “When a player moves from Italy to France or Germany to Spain then they don’t really talk too much about how a player will adapt in the team and the league”.

“I don’t analyse individual performances”, was Pellegrini’s curt reply to questions about De Bruyne.

“Of course I like it when we are winning”.

Pin-point passing was complemented by confidence on the ball, a willingness to track back defensively, and a rasping shot for his first goal after City had gone 2-0 down.

Arsenal lost 2-1 away to Dinamo Zagreb and the Croatian side’s coach, Zoran Mamic, thanked Bilic after the game for providing key information that helped his team win.

Bilic says Payet’s quick assimilation of the English game has not surprised him, saying he has settled “very well”.

“This was a different game to the one at the Emirates and the one at Anfield”. This team are the best in the league. For West Ham, Angelo Ogbonna is inactive with a hamstring injury.

“I’m so proud of everyone that is connected with our great club, the fans, the people working, my staff, all the board but especially the players, they’ve done brilliantly tonight”, he said. Where is it going to take us?