West Ham ace calls for improvement on outstanding away record

The league leaders saw their 11-match winning streak brought to an end thanks to first half goals from Victor Moses and Diafra Sakho for a West Ham side that has won all three of their away games this season-at Arsenal, Liverpool and, now, City.

Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini expressed his frustration at seeing his side crash to a shock home defeat against West Ham United on Saturday evening.

City were stunned after six minutes as Moses struck – his first goal since joining the Hammers on loan from Chelsea – with a fine shot from outside the box.

City’s record signing Kevin De Bruyne fired in to halve the deficit, but the visitor held on to claim three points.

“When it was 2-0 I thought we could have scored more goals, but then City scored and we had to defend really well in the second half”.

Ahead of the tough fixture against Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium, West Ham manager Slaven Bilic had nothing but compliments for arguably West Ham’s best player so far Dimitri Payet.

However, with City going into the game boasting a 100% start with five successive wins, while they had not conceded a goal, they were expected to stretch their lead at the top of the table.

Centre-half Eliaquim Mangala was replaced at half-time by Martin Demichelis with City already trailing 2-1, which turned out to be the final score.

“We never believed, because we won five games, we were champions of the Premier League“, Pellegrini said.

“Every player has worked so hard for the team and had a big motivation to win the game”, the 25-year-old striker said. In fact, Jesus Navas, who got the start in place of Silva, was arguably City’s best player throughout the match. “We have no time to dwell, but that is a good thing, and we can bounce back”.

“We were too rushed in the second half but when you go two goals down you play like that”.

Unfortunately for City, club captain Vincent Kompany will be out against West Ham with a calf injury suffered in their Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) Champions League loss against Juventus, but forward Sergio Agüero will be available, according to BBC Sport.