West Ham vs Man City result: Raheem Sterling hat-trick inspires champions to thrash Hammers
Manchester City got their Premier League title defence off to the perfect start as Raheem Sterling scored a hat-trick in their 5-0 demolition of West Ham United at the London Stadium.
The home side's resilience was broken in the 25th minute when Gabriel Jesus was able to poke the ball home from close range after stealing in ahead of Issa Diop, and although the Hammers were able to see out the rest of the first half just a goal down, the floodgates opened after the break.
Sterling scored his first goal soon after the restart and doubled his personal tally soon after, although they sandwiched a slice of Premier League history as the first VAR-overturned decision took place when Jesus had his second ruled out, with Sterling's armpit judged to be offside. Sterling soon looked to have the chance to go for his hat-trick, only for substitute Sergio Aguero to take it and see his effort saved by West Ham goalkeeper Lukasz Fabianski.
But Fabianski was judged to be off his line, and Aguero breathed a sigh of relief as he tucked away the retake. Sterling would have one last chance though and wrapped up his hat-trick in the dying seconds to get City off to the dream start. Re-live the action below.
Welcome to The Independent's live coverage of today's opening Premier League clash between West Ham United and Manchester City, brought to you from the London Stadium in Stratford.
Team news is due in imminently, so stand by your beds for the first starting XIs of the season from the reigning champions and their opening weekend opponents.
So Sergio Aguero begins the season on the bench, having had limited pre-season time, while Bernardo Silva misses out to Riyad Mahrez on the right side of attack. For West Ham, Sebastien Haller makes his debut up front in what looks, on paper, like a really strong team.
Manchester City were considering investing in a London training base, but they seemed to have already made the London Stadium their second home judging by previous results there, winning 4-0, 4-1 and 4-0 on their last three visits.
Sebastian Haller has said just about what every West Ham player and supporter was probably thinking when they saw that Manchester City was their first fixture of the new season.
“What a s*** game to start with!” Haller, told the Daily Mirror. “I go there for a lot of money, now first game City! Why?
“There are better games to build your confidence! Hopefully I will touch the ball! We will see.
“What can I say? Everyone needs to be prepared. They are the Champions from the League, the Cup, from even the Cup that I don’t know the name of.
“So yes, it will be difficult. We will need to make a crazy game. It is probably best for the team to get a game like that because we will need to be focused 100 per cent.”
Manuel Pellegrini: "I don't know if there is a good time to play Manchester City," admitted Pellegrini.
"But you have to play against them. We play here at home. We are not going to change all that we think about football because we play against them. We are going to try to play in the way that we play.
"They have good players. But we are not going to wait for them and lose to them by the least amount of goals that we can. We are going to try to play the way we do, we will try to win that game from the first minute."
Leroy Sane is facing a lengthy spell on the sidelines after the club confirmed that he suffered an ACL injury, and Pep Guardiola said this will present players like Mahrez the chance to step up.
"The quality (we get) from Leroy we don't have it (without him). A little bit Sterling has it but the special quality of Leroy you can't find it around the world, that attacking the space, that speed.
"Riyad has another (quality), so he's not a substitute for Leroy. My opinion during the first few games, the performance of Riyad, I was quite impressed. He didn't play too much because in his position was one of the best players in the league in Bernardo and of course Sterling.
"But with Leroy absent, we have more space and a lot of games, one less forward player, so he is going to play. The way they are training, I'll try to let everyone play."
6: Rodri loses possession to Lanzini on the edge of the area and then appears to bring down the Argentine in the box. The ball truckles out and Mike Dean gives a goal kick after a very quick message from the VAR boys in his ear.
8: This isn't really the start we expected from Manchester City here, they haven't really got going, There's not a great deal of quick passing in the middle and it's West Ham getting into better areas at the minute.
9: Mahrez does Mahrez things and weaves his way in from the right to force a save from Fabianski, who did well to beat away a low, powerful effort that bounces just in front of him.
Mike Dean was quickly told that there was nothing in Rodri's challenge on Lanzini in the penalty area and play was back underway without any real delay.
Silva drags a left-footed effort just wide after quickly shifting the ball from one foot to another to give him space to shoot. Fabianski had a lot of ground to make up to get towards the ball and is very pleased to see that effort from outside the box trickle wide.
17: We love training ground set-pieces, but we love it even more when they go wrong. That's what's just happened to Manchester City, who have blown a wide free-kick by quickly passing it to absolutely nobody in the box...
18: West Ham embark on a speedy counter attack, but it breaks down as Antonio gets himself in a tangle with Laporte. The home side had the numbers to trouble City there.
20: Time to talk about Haller. It looks like West Ham have signed a brilliant striker who has wasted no time in settling into his new team and has taken to the Premier League perfectly. His hold-up play has been first-class, helping his seamless link-up play with Lanzini.
22: Don't do that, Cresswell! He slides to block Mahrez's shot, but the winger sees it coming and cuts inside onto his left foot and drags an effort inside the area wide. You can't let him onto his preferred side!
Kyle Walker takes off with brilliant pace on the right and fires a low cross to the six-yard box and Gabriel Jesus turns it in.
Cresswell was caught out by Walker's express-speed and Jesus was tightly marked in the middle, but somehow manages to turn the ball in after Diop can't clear it at the front post.
