Beware the Ides of March, they told an emperor once. And when Sunday dawns, Pep Guardiola will wake knowing that this may have been the weekend when the Premier League title slipped irrevocably away from his Manchester City team. It may have been the weekend when the decisive blows were struck.
Earlier on Saturday evening, Arsenal‘s clash with Everton at The Emirates was goalless as the game went into the last couple of minutes of normal time and then Jordan Pickford made a mistake, Viktor Gyokeres scored, and Max Dowman added another. Mikel Arteta celebrated as if he knew this could be a pivotal moment.
That result left Arsenal 10 points clear. It also left City needing to beat West Ham United at the London Stadium to retain a realistic hope of catching Arteta’s side. City took the lead through Bernardo Silva but West Ham pegged them back immediately through Konstantinos Mavropanos and, try as they might, City could not find a winner.
Guardiola, confined to the stands after his booking against Newcastle United last weekend, could only watch and fret as time began to ebb away, frantically making phone calls to the bench and looking increasingly agitated as West Ham fought like tigers to hang on to the point that took them above Nottingham Forest and out of the bottom three.
And so the gap is nine points. City have a game in hand and they still have to play Arsenal in Manchester so all is not quite lost yet. But games are running out. Arsenal are eking out results and City are showing signs of tying up.
A couple of days ago, Guardiola had launched a passionate defence of his team selections as City manager in the wake of his team’s 3-0 dismantling by Real Madrid on Wednesday night, railing at the way he was ‘destroyed’ for picking both Jeremy Doku and Savinho in the starting line-up at the Bernabeu.
Manchester City lost more ground to Arsenal in the Premier League title race as they drew 1-1 with West Ham
Pep Guardiola, suspended and in the stands, watched on in agony as his side wasted chances
And he scoffed at how things would change, how there would be a volte-face, if City beat West Ham at the London Stadium. ‘If we win,’ he said, ‘it will be “Perfect Pep”.’ He was probably right. But City did not win. And an air of defeatism started to creep into their play.
City kept West Ham, who have only lost two of their last nine Premier League games, pressed deep into their own half in the opening stages. In the first 10 minutes, they had 93 per cent of possession. West Ham barely strung together two passes. When they threatened to, Omar Marmoush stopped a ball down the line with his arm and was shown a yellow card.
But the visitors did not look like scoring, even with that level of domination and the same pattern continued. City started to look out of sorts. A little flat. A little as if the defeat by Madrid and the news of the Arsenal result had knocked the wind out of them. The best they could muster for a while was a free kick from Marmoush that flew wildly wide.
But then, after half an hour, just when West Ham were threatening to get some sort of a foothold in the game, Bernardo Silva produced what was either a moment of genius or a stroke of luck.
Marmoush fed the ball to him on the overlap and Bernardo looked up and saw Erling Haaland loitering at the back post. But West Ham keeper Mads Hermansen had also strayed marginally off his line.
Bernardo drifted the chip towards the centre but instead of finding Haaland, it sailed in a perfect arc over the head of Hermansen. El Hadji Malick Diouf made a desperate effort to hook the ball away but it was too late.
Was it deliberate? Bernardo’s reaction seemed to suggest it wasn’t. He met Haaland’s amused congratulations with a wry smile and as he was walking back to the centre circle, someone else seemed to ask him if he had meant it. Bernardo shook his head.
Three minutes and 42 seconds later, West Ham won their first corner. It was greeted with raucous cheers from the home fans, optimism that proved to be well founded. Jarrod Bowen swung it over, deep into the six-yard box, Gianluigi Donnarumma came for it and missed it completely.
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Try as City did to find a second goal, a resolute home defence stood firm in the capital
West Ham, meanwhile, now find themselves outsdie the relegation zone in the standings
Konstantinos Mavropanos rose majestically to meet it, his header crashing off the underside of the crossbar and over the line. In the stand, Guardiola did his best to look impassive but could not quite manage it.
City missed an opportunity to go back into the lead on the stroke of half-time. Haaland played a neat, short ball inside to Antoine Semenyo 15 yards out. Semenyo had time and space but his sidefooted shot arrowed just wide of Hermansen’s right-hand post.
Marmoush flashed a shot across the face of goal in the early minutes of the second half and looked back at Bernardo as if he were bemused that Haaland had not got on the end of it. Haaland had tried but he was well-marshalled by West Ham defenders.
West Ham came tantalisingly close to a second goal when Tomas Soucek swung a cross to the near post and Taty Castellanos flung himself at it. A touch, a glance, might have been enough, but Castellanos did not make any contact and the ball was cleared.
City started to try to turn up the heat. Rayan Cherki came on. Doku came on. Bernardo threaded a clever pass through to Haaland and he curled his shot so that it was heading for the far corner before Hermansen got down smartly to his right and pushed it wide.