Nowhere in English football does the manager appear more isolated than at the London Stadium. This match had a television audience of millions, a stadium attendance of tens of thousands, a matchday staff in the hundreds, a few dozen players, coaches and physios and beyond them all, standing alone on the touchline with the bench a good 20 yards distant and no one but an occasional passing linesman for company, the two men carrying responsibility for it all.
Only one of them had the added burden of genuine expectation. At Barcelona and Bayern Munich Pep Guardiola’s first season in charge ended with victory in both domestic league and cup, but England has not acquiesced so easily. Despite winning four of their last five games City stand seven points off the league summit, were knocked out of the EFL Cup by Manchester United in October, and with this competition offering perhaps the most straightforward remaining route to silverware he had ample reason to bemoan an “unlucky” draw, particularly with the remainder of the Premier League top-six playing teams from outside the top flight, in some cases by quite a distance, in the third round.
The Catalan bore it well, though such was his team’s superiority that his fortitude was not exactly tested. Slaven Bilic’s pre-match assertion that City were “not that confident any more” turned out to be just one of several mis-steps on his part and those of his charges. West Ham’s previous five games had seen them, in the words of their manager, put in “not great performances” in two games they won, “play well” in two matches they lost, and collect one resounding victory over Swansea. Here they completed the set with a comprehensive and thoroughly merited defeat.
They were not helped by a string of individual errors at vital moments. When Pablo Zabaleta, a makeshift midfielder in the absence of the suspended Fernandinho, collected David Silva’s excellent pass in the 32nd minute his very obvious intention was to take a touch, wait for a challenge and then fall over. Angelo Ogbonna mindlessly blundered into the trap. Two minutes after Yaya Touré converted the penalty, Sofiane Feghouli missed a fabulous chance to equalise from three yards as Gaël Clichy flung himself at the ball in a belated but successful attempt to distract him. Things could, perhaps, have been different, or at least less rapidly the same. By then Andy Carroll had already been prevented from properly attacking a Feghouli cross by Michail Antonio’s determination to beat him to it, the former, on his 28th birthday, flinging his arms around in evident frustration.
Back in the technical areas, there was no such gesticulating. As City added two more goals in quick succession Bilic shovelled his hands ever deeper into his trouser pockets as if he was sure that somewhere inside them was a hole he could climb into. On the field his players continued to dig their own: Havard Nordtveit flung out a right boot to divert Bacary Sagna’s cross into his own goal with Raheem Sterling at his shoulder, and two minutes later the other three members of the back four were lured forward as Sergio Agüero and Sterling played a one-two-three-four, leaving Nordtveit to cope alone as the Englishman escaped with Zabaleta and Silva for company before setting up the latter.
Soon Bilic was in total isolation, as Guardiola spent the great majority of the second half sitting on his bench, rising only to celebrate the fourth goal with a group huddle-cum-tactical-discussion with his coaching staff, as comfortable now as was his team.
There had been a few moments of potential concern for City, with the West Ham front two of Carroll and Antonio demonstrating their aerial menace by repeatedly and profoundly outjumping Nicolás Otamendi in the first half-hour, but in contrast to his opponents there could be little faulting the decision-making of his regularly rickety backline. There was an occasion, as he reached a bouncing ball just before Feghouli, when John Stones demonstrated his willingness to boot it into Row C – the seats are a long way from the pitch, after all – but also two fine chances, including the Nordtveit own-goal, that came after West Ham pushed players forward to unsuccessfully harry defenders as they pinged the ball among themselves in tight areas.
With 20 minutes to play, an air of inevitability having settled over the stadium as determinedly as the rainclouds, the stadium was barely two-thirds full. When West Ham return to this ground in a few weeks to play City again, in the league this time, it will surely be them feeling not that confident any more.
Meanwhile it wasn’t just the rain falling on his pate that added to Guardiola’s sheen here. City stand one step from a notable clean sweep of potential finishing positions in this competition, the last six seasons having seen them win once, lose to Wigan in the 2013 final, and fall once each in the third, fourth, fifth and sixth rounds. That leaves them only a semi-final defeat away from a curious achievement, though a place in the final four seems the very least that this side, confidence replenished, can go on to achieve now.
