Workmanlike West Ham United battled across every blade of the London Stadium grass to secure a dogged, defiant, determined draw against Manchester City, on Saturday evening.
The Hammers were on the back-foot throughout a one-sided, 90 minutes that saw Bernardo Silva chip the visitors ahead on the half-hour mark before Konstantinos Mavropanos quickly replied with a powerful header to rescue a precious point.
“There was no other way but to defend,” insisted Nuno Espírito Santo following the 1-1 draw that briefly lifted his side out of the dreaded drop-zone overnight for the first time in 102 days.
“We had to recognise the quality of our opponents and defend. We reacted well after we conceded and ended up putting up a very good defensive performance.”
The Hammers head coach made four changes to the team that had reached the FA Cup quarter-finals with a thrilling penalty shoot-out victory over Brentford five days earlier – Mads Hermansen, El Hadji Malick Diouf, Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Jean-Clair Todibo all earned recalls to a West Ham side lining up in a formidable, feisty, fighting five-man defensive formation.
Guardiola’s side – still smarting from their three-goal UEFA Champions League defeat at Real Madrid in midweek, soon enjoyed both territorial advantage and majority possession without truly testing the Hammers resilient rear-guard.
But on 32 minutes, City broke the deadlock in fortuitous fashion through Silva, whose deft, angled, left-wing chip floated over both Hermansen and Diouf on its way into the net as Haaland prepared to ghost in at the far post.
Only the Portuguese playmaker knows whether it was intended as a cross or shot?
But there was absolutely no doubt about West Ham’s equaliser that came within just three minutes of Silva’s opener.
Bowen fired West Ham’s first corner of the evening towards Mavropanos – the man who had rifled home the decisive spot-kick in Monday’s FA Cup fifth-round shoot-out – and rising highest, the Greece international defender met the deep cross with a powerful header that crashed in-off the underside of Gianluigi Donnarumma’s crossbar.
“We hadn’t got ourselves into too many situations where we allowed City to break us down but when they did score we reacted well,” contended Nuno, who saw the second-half mirror the opening 45 minutes.
As the redundant Donnarumma looked-on, his counterpart Hermansen was kept busy by Haaland, Matheus Nunes and substitute Rayan Cherki, while Marc Guéhi also skewed wide in stoppage time to leave City nine points adrift of leaders Arsenal with eight games to play.
“This result will help us to recover better but nothing’s changed,” insisted Nuno who now takes the 18th-placed Hammers to Aston Villa on Sunday (kick-off 2pm) knowing his side is still only separated from fellow-strugglers Nottingham Forest by goal-difference.
“It keeps a good mood and atmosphere amongst everybody as we prepare for our next game but we must stay humble because there’s still lots of hard work in front of us. All the boys know that’s the case, too.”
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