The late kick-off on Saturday resulted in another Erling Haaland (£14.6m) blank and more dropped points for Manchester City.
That might be the last we see of City in the Premier League for a month, with a still-to-be-confirmed Blank Gameweek 31 looming.
PEP ASSUAGES HAALAND INJURY FEARS
The City firesale has begun, with Haaland top of the transfers out column.
Injury or no injury, the exodus will continue. A yellow flag would likely intensify that, and the sight of the Norwegian clutching his groin on Saturday suggested an issue.
However, it appears to be more of a ‘Hans Moleman’ type of problem.
Pep Guardiola went all Carry On when asked about it.
“Hopefully his wife will be happy tonight” | Pep on Haaland’s groin pull pic.twitter.com/GBYqbvtO8W
— BeanymanSports (@BeanymanSports) March 14, 2026
“I think hopefully his wife will be happy tonight. I didn’t speak with him and the doctors didn’t see me.
“I think in the moment, he’s injured, but after the last minutes, he runs, so I think it’s not a problem.” – Pep Guardiola
It was another evening of struggle for the striker, who now has just three goals in his last 12 league outings.
There were glimmers: an effort well saved by Mads Hermansen (£4.2m), another sent narrowly wide, and a near-assist when Antoine Semenyo (£8.3m) shot narrowly off-target.
But, all of that amounted to just 0.35 xGI. Not since Gameweek 17 has his non-penalty xGI been above 1.00 in a single game.
Guardiola admitted after full-time that it was as much about supplying the Norwegian with ammunition as the man himself.
“Erling, we need his goals, definitely, but we need to create more.
“In the first half, we… had a lot of control but we were not a threat as much as we were in the second half.
“He will be back and maybe surprisingly back soon.” – Pep Guardiola on Erling Haaland
PEP’S “BAD SELECTION” – CONCERN FOR SEMENYO?
The second-half introduction of Rayan Cherki (£6.4m) and Jeremy Doku (£6.4m) gave City a bit more attacking oomph and Haaland service. The forward’s two best chances came from passes from those two.
With City struggling to carve out anything of note, the question begged to be asked: why didn’t Pep start his most creative player in Cherki?
Semenyo initially lined up in the Cherki role on Saturday (above), with Omar Marmoush (£8.3m) joining Haaland up top. The Ghanaian saw a lot of the ball and picked up some promising positions but didn’t do a great deal with it. He’s a finisher, not an arch-creator, and to quote the Manchester Evening News, he’s seemingly “happier to run onto the ball rather than have it at his feet”.
Guardiola admitted after the game that not starting Cherki in Semenyo’s position was a “bad selection”. However, he also confirmed what many of us had suspected anyway: that he doesn’t quite trust Cherki off the ball.
Asked by a reporter about Cherki’s omission, Guardiola discussed how “stability” comes into his team selection.
“Yeah, you’re right. For that role, absolutely, there’s no one better than him.
“Bad selection. Now you can criticise me for the selection. Now I deserve it. It’s sometimes for the balance. We learned in the beginning when playing Erling in that moment with Jeremy [Doku], with Cherki, we are incredibly unbalanced. We have not got the stability that the teams in the Premier League have to have and that’s why I try to handle that. So, that’s why it is a team, like, is growing. I think that from the beginning we grow a lot but still is not a finished business.
“But I will not be the one that says that I don’t love to play with Rayan. When he comes from the bench, always the impact is unbelievable. But sometimes he has not got the speed… the team was stable when Semenyo and Nico O’Reilly play in the winger position, coming inside and go there, arriving to the box. They were really, really, really good. So, yeah, I’m still finding the best way to have stability and consistency in the team.” – Pep Guardiola, when asked why he didn’t start Rayan Cherki in the role that Antoine Semenyo was initially operating in
We did briefly see Doku, Semenyo, Cherki and Haaland in the same side in the second half, the first two on the flanks and Cherki behind Haaland. Semenyo then made way in the final 15 minutes.
O’REILLY BACK INTO MIDFIELD… AND THEN BACK TO LEFT-BACK
Having had a mare at left-back in Madrid, Nico O’Reilly (£5.1m) was back in midfield here. At least, he was for the first hour.
After the withdrawal of Rayan Ait-Nouri (£5.7m), who actually had a good game, O’Reilly was back at full-back for the last 30 minutes.
Still, he emerged from the game with the joint-most number of shots (four). All of them came from the 84th minute onwards, and all of them from set plays as City went all Arsenal. Having failed to pass West Ham into submission, the final 20 minutes were less sophisticated and all about crosses and set pieces:
HAMMERS MAKING DEFENSIVE STRIDES UNDER NUNO
In seven of their last nine Premier League games, West Ham have conceded zero or one goals.
Nuno Espirito Santo is known for his defence-first approach and it’s certainly now in evidence in east London.
“There was no other way. You have to recognise the quality of your opponent and defend, defend. I think in the first half, we defended higher and better. Didn’t allow too many situations for City to break us down.
“I think it was a very good defensive performance, I will say heroic from our boys.” – Nuno Espirito Santo
Yes, they had to ride their luck at times. But City’s xG of 2.01 was spread over 24 mostly innocuous efforts. The one Opta-defined ‘big chance’ was Marc Guehi‘s (£5.2m) final stoppage-time effort, again from a corner.
West Ham had only one shot all match – and they made it count. Konstantinos Mavropanos‘ (£4.4m) headed goal from a Jarrod Bowen (£7.5m) corner made it seven returns (including DefCon) in eight games for the latter.
