What more could Pep Guardiola have asked for than this? His Manchester City team finished a difficult week by picking West Ham United to pieces at the London Stadium, delivering a 5-0 win in which the hosts could barely lay a finger on City. Now City can enjoy their weekend before waiting to see who they play in the fourth round.

Even more valuable than that, though, was the obvious sense of vindication this win provided for Guardiola. He has not had an easy few weeks, looking uneasy at a combination of bad results, bad performances and bad press. But this was a very good result, an even performance, and a tactical triumph for a system that certainly raised a few eyebrows at kick-off. But City dominated the game, mixing possession with penetration and never surrendering control. Football is a fickle place but suddenly the whole Guardiola experiment looks coherent again.

Despite the ease with which Manchester City later raced away, there was some anxiety about the opening stages of this game for Pep Guardiola’s side. They crashed out of the EFL Cup at the first hurdle and could not afford for the same thing to happen here. They are not playing well enough to win either of the elite trophies.

Yaya Toure converts from the spot (Getty)

Guardiola responded to the pressure with invention, picking a diamond midfield with, curiously, Kevin de Bruyne and Pablo Zabaleta shuttling down the sides. Zabaleta featured in midfield in December but it is not his natural role. When Zabaleta played in a right-half role at Leicester City and it did not work, Guardiola was hammered. Given recent events this was a risk.

But the risk worked, perfectly. City’s four men dominated midfield, and when Zabaleta burst forward into the box, West Ham were out-numbered. His should have put City ahead after just seven minutes, meeting David Silva’s pass, only for Winston Reid to throw himself in front of the shot.

Reid had to make another brilliant tackle to deny Raheem Sterling, running onto Silva’s pass, but the next time City attacked they took the lead. Again, Zabaleta broke beyond West Ham’s defence. Again, Silva found him. Angelo Ogbonna struggled to recover, collided with Zabaleta, and Michael Oliver gave the penalty. Toure put it into the corner, his fourth goal of the season.

John Stones puts in a challenge on Andy Carroll (Getty)

City could relax and then they were away. They controlled the game and killed it with two high-class high-speed goals in two minutes, just before the break.

First, a brisk counter-attack moved the ball to Bacary Sagna, bursting down the right. He whipped in a first time cross to the far post. Sterling was running onto it but Havard Nordtveit got their first, own-goaling the ball into the net.

West Ham’s heads dropped and City punished them straight after kick-off. Sterling and Aguero exchanged passes before West Ham could wake up and Sterling raced in behind, into space. He could have shot but he crossed to Silva, standing by himself in the box. Silva’s first touch was so perfect, cushioning the ball just where he wanted it, that it wrong-footed Adrian. It was a gift from Silva to himself, and he took it.

David Silva celebrates Manchester City's third with Gael Clichy (Getty)

That was the end of the game as a contest. The only question left was how many more goals City wanted to score. Their fourth came five minutes after the restart with a training ground casualness to it. Toure shot from 20 yards out, towards Aguero, lingering on the edge of the six yard box. He stuck out his right boot to deflect the ball over Adrian, whose reactions were not at their sharpest, and into the net.

From then on it was just keep-ball. West Ham brought Mark Noble and Dimitri Payet on, each one hour too late, but they were in no real mood to get back into the game. Guardiola even threw on Aleix Garcia, the young Spanish midfielder, to sit alongside Toure and spray passes out to the wings.​