In an unsurprising turn of events, West Ham United failed to complete the six-goal comeback that would have been necessary to see them through to the final as Manchester City again dealt them a convincing defeat at Upton Park.
West Ham United vs. Manchester City: Final score 0-3, Hammers surprisingly fail to complete world’s most likely comeback
West Ham United lost their second leg against Manchester City as convincingly as the first as they never really looked like threatening their opponents.
Ian Walton
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If the game was a boxing match, then people probably would’ve been quite surprised to see City win so easily, because West Ham’s lot look a lot handier in a fight than their opponents. So fortunately for City it was not a boxing match, but a football one, and one which they managed to get through with a minimum of fuss.
Alvaro Negredo opened the scoring after just three minutes, the hosts barely bothering to defend as Marcos Lopes crossed for the big striker to head in virtually unmolested, with James Tomkins and Roger Johnson AWOL in the hosts’ back four.
Yet the hosts tightened up slightly thereafter, seemingly determined not to suffer another humiliation, and looked to have scored an equaliser when Kevin Nolan sidefooted home from Matty Taylor's centre, only to be correctly ruled offside.
Lopes was again involved as City doubled their lead in the leg, skipping past defenders before Sergio Aguero continued the run and finished smartly to make it 2-0, again taking advantage of some awful defending. West Ham were hardly under siege the whole game, but when City did get forward, the defence was simply nonexistant, which will not bode well for their relegation battle for survival
Negredo got his second of the night just after half-time by surging down the right channel with remarkable ease and prodding the ball beyond Jussi Jaaskelainen to make it 9-0 on aggregate.
City will now face one of Sunderland or Manchester United in the final, with their intra-city rivals trailing 2-1 from the first leg but with the second still to play at Old Trafford.
West Ham: Jaaskelainen, Taylor, Tomkins, Johnson, Rat, Diame, Diarra, Morrison, Nolan, Joe Cole (Downing 47’), Carroll (Carlton Cole 46’).
Man City: Pantilimon, Boyata, Lescott, Nastasic, Clichy, Jesus Navas (Kolarov 79’), Javi Garcia (Rodwell 63’), Fernandinho, Lopes, Negredo, Aguero (Jovetic 65’).
Goals: Negredo 3’, 59’, Aguero 24’
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