Manchester City - 0 West Ham - 1:PREMIERSHIP: There was a point yesterday when Trevor Brooking inadvertently wandered into the wrong technical area and stood alongside a bemused Kevin Keegan until the fourth official politely ushered him back.
Even if Brooking is not yet au fait with managerial protocol, his appointment is looking a wise decision.
Brooking will remember his first match as manager as a fulfilling experience, even if the intense relief that accompanied this victory was tempered by the departure of Les Ferdinand with a suspected broken leg.
Second-guessing West Ham's immediate future is another matter. Had Manchester City won yesterday Aston Villa, Fulham and Leeds would all have been safe and the third relegation place would have been a skirmish between West Ham and Bolton.
As it is, their second successive 1-0 win in a sequence of nine matches with only one defeat offers renewed hope. West Ham are still two points behind Bolton and will probably require at least four points from their remaining two games.
And finally the side are playing with resilience and, most importantly, defensive nous. Glen Johnson was the game's outstanding performer and Tomas Repka looked a different player from the one that has so often been the butt of derision.
A hoarse Brooking was entitled, therefore, to croak his pleasure after an examining day that began with Glenn Roeder sending a good-luck message, via his wife Faith, from his bed at the Royal London Hospital.
Roeder's temporary replacement will be embarrassed by suggestions he greatly influenced the game, pointing out that the coaches Paul Goddard and Roger Cross had conducted much of the preparations. Yet it was Brooking's decision, at the midway stage of a match, to bring on a third striker in Frederic Kanoute. It would be stretching the point to say that this adventurous approach turned the match but Kanoute, with his fifth goal of an injury-ravaged season, concocted the decisive moment.
The defending, or rather lack of it, epitomised much of City's season. Not one of Keegan's players reacted when Don Hutchison's efforts to prod in a Joe Cole cross were thwarted first by Peter Schmeichel's frame and then the goalkeeper's right-hand post. The ball trickled across the goal-line, where Kanoute scored with a simple tap-in that spared Brooking the argument of whether, five minutes earlier, Jermain Defoe's shot had crossed the line before Niclas Jensen headed clear.
City's attackers were also having one of their frequent off-days. It was just as well considering the frequency with which David James looked uncertain in goal. Four times in the first half he might have cost West Ham, even if he did make amends after the interval with a charge off his line to deny Nicolas Anelka.
Schmeichel, at times, seemed equally vulnerable, almost presenting Ferdinand with a 40th-minute goal before clattering into the striker five minutes into the second half, leaving him motionless for three minutes. Ferdinand, his legs strapped together, was taken off on a stretcher and driven to hospital.
Guardian Service
MAN CITY: Schmeichel, Dunne, Jensen (Goater 87), Distin, Sommeil, Foe, Barton, Benarbia (Belmadi 71), Wright-Phillips, Fowler (Macken 71), Anelka. Subs Not Used: Nash, Bischoff. Booked: Sommeil.
WEST HAM: James, Johnson, Pearce (Dailly 85), Repka, Brevett,Sinclair, Cole, Lomas, Cisse (Kanoute 45), Les Ferdinand (Hutchison 54), Defoe. Subs Not Used: Van Der Gouw, Garcia. Booked: Defoe. Goals: Kanoute 81.
Referee: R Styles.
