Sterling scores 2, Man City beats West Ham 3-1

MANCHESTER, England — Raheem Sterling offered further evidence of his improvement under Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola by scoring early and late goals in a 3-1 win over West Ham in the English Premier League on Sunday.

Fernandinho scored the other goal for City, which has won its first three matches of the campaign to be level on points with title rivals Manchester United and Chelsea.

A negative for Guardiola’s side could be a second-half incident in which star striker Sergio Aguero appeared to swing an elbow at marker Winston Reid as they competed for a high ball in the second half. The referee was nearby and didn’t give a foul, but if he says he didn’t see it, Aguero could face a retrospective ban that would rule him out of City’s next game — the Manchester derby.

Guardiola said he didn’t see the incident and gave short shrift to the possibility of a suspension for Aguero — but was much happier to talk about Sterling’s revival.

The winger, who cost City 49 million pounds ($76 million) in the summer of 2015, lost his place in the team at the end of last season under former coach Manuel Pellegrini and endured a disappointing European Championship with England. He has looked a different player under Guardiola, rediscovering his confidence and dribbling ability.

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He now has two goals to his name, the first coming in the seventh minute to finish off one of City’s many flowing team moves in a dominant first-half display by the hosts.

Fernandinho added a second goal in the 18th minute with a powerful header from Kevin de Bruyne’s free kick. But it needed Sterling’s injury-time goal — when he rounded the goalkeeper and scored from an acute angle — to see off a West Ham side that improved in the second half.

“Of course, we are pleased,” Guardiola said of Sterling. “He can play right, left, centre. He is so dynamic. I am so happy he is playing good.”

It looked like being a procession for City after a one-sided first half but Michail Antonio’s 58th-minute header — a replica of his winner against Bournemouth last weekend — made it 2-1 and set up a tense finish at Etihad Stadium.

“Of course we can do better,” Guardiola said. “No doubt about that. But we are just one and a half, two months here.”

The defeat ended a difficult few days for West Ham manager Slaven Bilic, whose injury-hit team lost to Romanian side Astra Giurgiu on Thursday to miss out on Europa League qualification.

Dimitri Payet, Aaron Cresswell and record signing Andre Ayew were among the key players missing for Bilic.

“You can’t say City didn’t deserve to win. Of course they did,” he said.

“With so many players we are missing, I have to praise this team. We can’t play much better than we did in the second half especially when you are missing six seven eight players and you play against them.”

Steve Douglas, The Associated Press