Bowen ensures a week of excruciating Gerrard title build-up as Manchester City respond to Evra

Jarrod Bowen tormented Man City but Pep Guardiola and his players issued a fine response to recent criticism and maintain a grip on the title.

“Pep Guardiola’s got a massive job on,” said Gary Neville, but it was West Ham and Liverpool fans nursing a collective rigidity as Jarrod Bowen snorted Manchester City’s high line for a second time. The home farewell of Mark Noble was a cast-Irons guarantee of classy touches throughout the afternoon but few were as elegant and conclusive as those of the goalscorer.

The only players to see less of the ball in the first half at the London Stadium were Vladimir Coufal and Craig Dawson, yet those fleeting moments in possession were optimised by Bowen. A few things happened only twice in those opening 45 minutes: Lukasz Fabianski deciding not to waste time; Oleksandr Zinchenko losing all concept of focus; Bowen timing his run on the shoulder to perfection; a teammate finding it with glorious precision. West Ham turned a pair of goal kicks into goals in the 24th and 45th minutes respectively and a makeshift Manchester City defence was in disarray.

This was one of Kyle Walker’s best games. Joao Cancelo, Fernandinho, Aymeric Laporte and Zinchenko could find neither their individual nor collective bearings. The generally unflappable Ederson vacated both his area and senses in the second half to jump-start a period of panic which the visitors barely survived.

By that point, Jack Grealish had halved a historically daunting deficit. Manchester City had never won a Premier League away game in which they trailed by two goals or more at half-time. It sounds like one of those ludicrously specific and meaningless statistics – it’s not as though they regularly have the chance to correct it – but it