WHAT a difference a week makes. After succumbing to Villa in their opening fixture last week, City looked confident against the Hammers.

The match was settled in a 10-minute second half spell, with Elano bagging two and Daniel Sturridge also finding the net.

West Ham struggled for much of the second period, having lost Mark Noble after 38 minutes when he received a second yellow card and Carlton Cole through injury shortly before.

A sickening clash of heads between City’s two central defenders, skipper Micah Richards and Tal Ben-Haim, saw the former receive eight minutes treatment on the pitch before being taken to hospital.

Earlier a Martin Petrov free kick had struck an upright and Ben-Haim came close when Callum Davenport deflected his effort on to the bar.

But on 65 minutes Sturridge crashed a shot into the roof of the net.

Within five minutes Elano skilfully found sufficient apace in the box to choose his spot and shortly afterwards Stephen Ireland took the ball to the byline and crossed for Elano to convert.

During 10 minutes’ stoppage time City lost Kelvin Etuhu with a hamstring injury and, having used all their substitutes, played out the match with only 10 men.

West Ham keeper Robert Green saved well from Michael Johnson in the dying minutes.