Mavropanos rises to help Hammers - and Arsenal - as City's title hopes fade in London

GREEK GOD: West Ham United's Konstantinos Mavropanos (partially obscured) celebrates with team-mates after scoring the winning penalty in the shoot-out during the Emirates FA Cup fifth round match at the London Stadium. Pic: Ben Whitley/PA Wire

West Ham United 1 Manchester City 1

Former Arsenal defender Konstantinos Mavropanos gave his old side a helping hand by putting a huge dent in their title rivals Manchester City’s hopes of catching them.

The Greek defender secured a 1-1 draw for relegation battling West Ham at the London Stadium, heading in with the Hammers’ only attempt of the entire game after Bernardo Silva had opened the scoring earlier in the first half.

Much like City boss Pep Guardiola’s view of the London Stadium pitch from the stands, his side are now very much staring at league leaders Arsenal from a distance. The Gunners, who scored twice late on to beat Everton 2-0 ahead of City’s 8pm kick-off, now lead their rivals by nine points though having played a game more.

Guardiola was forced to take a far less close-up view than he is used to, serving a touchline ban for an accumulation of yellow cards.

Assistant boss Pep Lijnders, who for many years competed against Guardiola while assisting Jurgen Klopp at Liverpool, said ahead of the match that the City boss would be in regular contact with his coaching staff and that was the case from almost the first whistle with Guardiola seen phoning down instructions right from the opening stages, even with his side seemingly in comfortable control of the game.

Bernardo Silva gave the visitors the lead just after the half-hour mark, latching onto a pass from Omar Marmoush before delicately dinking the ball over the head of Mads Hermansen and into the back of the net.

At first it looked like the Portuguese midfielder had pulled off an audacious attempt, but his celebrations seemed to suggest he had in fact not meant it and was instead trying to pick out his team-mates in the middle.

But, remarkably, West Ham levelled less than five minutes later through their first, and what would turn out to be only, attempt of the game. Mavropanos rose highest at the back post to head in off the bar after City goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma misjudged the flight of the ball and missed it completely.

The Italian shot stopper endured a difficult night in Madrid on Wednesday and did so again here at the London Stadium.

That equaliser woke up the Hammers faithful who had been given very little to get excited about during the first half, bar a vocal protest against the club’s owners which saw the home fans flash red cards to express their dissatisfaction with those running the club.

They were firmly behind their team despite that, however, and breathed a sigh of relief when Antoine Semenyo’s low shot at goal from just inside the box whistled narrowly wide of the bottom corner on the verge of half-time.

Guardiola phoned down to give the instruction to send on Jeremy Doku and Rayan Cherki midway through the second half with City still lacking a cutting edge for all of their possession.

And they almost paid dividends immediately, when Cherki sent Erling Haaland racing through on goal with a lovely through ball, only for the Norwegian’s low effort to be tipped wide by Hermansen.

The Hammers goalkeeper was called into action again with the game in its closing stages, expertly tipping Cherki’s bending free-kick on to the bar with the smallest of touches.

Had Phil Foden made contact with Doku’s low cross from a few yards out, or Marc Guehi somehow not managed to sky a close-range effort over the bar from close range in stoppage time, it would have been a very different story for Guardiola’s men who, for all their pressure and possession, ultimately failed to make it count, leaving their title hopes fading, though not yet dying.

West Ham (3-5-2): Hermansen 7; Todibo 8, Mavropanos 8, Disasi 8; Wan-Bissaka 8, Soucek 7, Fernandes 7, Diouf 7; Bowen 7 (Kante), Castellanos 6 (Traore), Pablo 6 (Magassa) 

Manchester City (4-3-3): Donnarumma 5; Nunes 7, Khusanov 7, Guehi 7, Ait-Nouri 6 (Doku); Rodri 7, Silva 7 (Foden), O’Reilly 7; Semenyo 7 (Reijnders), Haaland 6, Marmoush 7 (Cherki) 

Referee: Michael Oliver 6