Manchester City vs. West Brom
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Gameday for West Brom would start out different from most teams as the team announced the signing of forward Salomon Rondon for a club-high $19 million. That said, the team would have to look forward to the game against Manchester City, who have hopes of winning the EPL title again. If history was meant to repeat itself, Manchester City would do exactly that as they would defeat West Brom (whom haven’t defeated Manchester City since December 21, 2008) and indeed win the league since the last five EPL winners started their season on Monday.
The game would be all Manchester City early with possession being dominated. The first real danger for Manchester City would come early when in the eighth minute when David Silva’s shot went wide of the net but fell right onto the feet of Jesus Navas, who would skip the ball over to Yaya Toure, whose shot outside of the box would trickle into the net. Questions on if the goal was Toure’s or Silva’s were raised, but it was ruled Silva didn’t make contact with the goal, giving Toure his first score of the young season.
It didn’t take Yaya Toure long to get back on the score sheet; in the 25th minute of action, Yaya Toure and Wilfred Bony connected on a perfect play with Yaya Toure blasting a shot into the top right corner of the net, giving the Manchester club an early 2-0 lead. There was no question on this goal and also no chance at a save as Boaz Myhill jumped just too late on a perfect placement by the central midfielder.
West Brom, who started the game off with a standard 4-4-2 formation, seemed to switch to a 4-5-1 after the halftime, the first two goals causing Rickie Lambert to drop back and play more defensively in the second half of play. Manchester City, on the other side of things, seemed to not want to back off and kept trying to get a third goal.
The second half began differently for West Brom, as we saw the team completely switch their tactic and becoming more on the attack. West Brom looked like a whole different team with their attack looking a lot more fluent as they were creating more chances.
That wouldn’t be enough, as Manchester City scored yet again, putting the nail in the coffin. This time though, the goal came from Vincent Kompany on a corner. David Silva delivered yet again a perfect ball which Vincent Kompany got his head on. After that, it was almost guaranteed that West Brom would go on to lose the game as they were left with half an hour to net four goals if they wanted a win.
In terms of debuts, Raheem Sterling began the game receiving boos from the West Brom crowd and would miss a wide open chance early. At Liverpool, he struggled with his finishing and it hasn’t looked any different in Blue. Sterling was decent at best, making mistakes at some points but finding his spacing later in the contest.
For West Brom, there was a lack of pressure, but Sadio Berahino looked good on the attack; unfortuntely, he couldn’t finish anything for West Brom. In net, Boaz Myhill looked good despite giving up three goals. On the first of those goals, there was nothing he could do as the ball was deflected by defender Craig Dawson. Another one of those goals was an absolute blast by Yaya Toure and was placed in the perfect point. The attacking did look suspect, making the signing of Salomon Rondon even more needed.
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Man of the Match: David Silva: Despite not being credited with the early goal, Silva was the curator of multiple attacks and completed 90 of his 95 attempted passes as well as drawing a game-high four fouls.
Next opponents: Manchester City: vs. Chelsea
West Brom: @ Watford