In driving rain at the KC stadium in Kingston-upon-Hull, Zlatan Ibrahimović discovered, if he didn’t already know, what the Premier League is all about.
Hull City who, against all the odds, had won their opening two games at home to Leicester City and away to Swansea City gave it everything and came very close to taking a point from this game.
Ravaged by injuries, surrounded by confusion over a supposed takeover and with a caretaker manager with no previous experience in the role, they almost deserved a draw. The only reason they didn’t fully deserve it was because Manchester United deserved to win.
The first half had been reasonably pedestrian and Hull had restricted United to a couple of long range shots which had flown wide. Hull themselves had won two free-kicks in dangerous positions, both as a result of reckless challenges by Marouane Fellaini. These, though, were the only talking points of note.
The second half started on a much brighter note even if the weather didn’t and after an hour the game was injected with a bit more life by the introduction of Henrikh Mhkitaryan who only knows one direction in which to go.
He was joined shortly afterwards by Marcus Rashford who shares the same philosophy.
These substitutions certainly got United closer to goal on occasions although they didn’t stop Paul Pogba trying his luck from distance whenever he saw an opportunity. Unfortunately, on this day, he had left his shooting boots in his locker.
When the winning goal did come it was in the 94th minute after some good work by Rooney who got to the byline and squared the ball back for Rashford to tap in.
Other than this assist Rooney, yet again, had contributed very little to the game and even though his one good moment led to Marcus Rashford scoring the winner, it is likely that Rooney has supplied more wood for the fans to make a stick with which to beat him.
In fact, shortly after the game, he was already the subject of the supporter’s anger on both Facebook and Twitter.
It is understandable anger as not many people can work out exactly how or why Rooney is keeping his place at the expense of the likes of Mhkitaryan and Rashford who both offer a lot more.
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Back in Manchester, City were up against West Ham United who, last season, had beaten them in both league games. Would City fare any better under Guardiola than they had under Pellegrini?
As is now the case, City started off like a train and were ahead after eight minutes. A slick move on the left saw Nolito square back for Sterling to score from around the penalty spot. At this stage it was a question of how many would City score?
In the 18th minute one became two when Fernandinho headed home, unmarked, from a Kevin de Bruyne freekick.
There then followed a lull in the proceedings which lasted until half time. City were by far the better team and the only surprise from the first half was that they had only scored two!
During the break West Ham had decided to make a substitution bringing on Sam Byram in place of Toré and also to change to a man-marking system from zonal.This made no difference initially as City continued where they left off in the first half.
They had a Nolito goal disallowed, rightly, for offside and then, in the 58th minute, were sucker punched when Antonio headed in a cross from the left.In the aftermath of this Kolarov came on for Stones who had been injured in the first half.
Now with renewed hope, West Ham set about trying to find an equaliser. In truth, they didn’t look like getting it and the only item of note was when Sergio Agüero deliberately elbowed Winston Reid in the face. He should have been sent off but, as is often the case, the referee completely missed it and he wasn’t even booked.
By now, Samir Nasri had come on in place of Nolito and demonstrated one or two nice touches. He will probably have to do a lot more to be selected for the Premier League and Champion’s League squads.
With three minutes left Agüero was replaced by Fernando in a rare defensive manoeuvre by Guardiola but it did the trick because, in the 93rd minute, Raheem Sterling scored his second and City’s third with a tight finish after going round the goalkeeper.
All in all a good couple of days for Manchester!
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