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Graphic: tactical analysis by Bill Edgar

There was only one certainty about Sven-Göran Eriksson’s revolutionised Manchester City. Four. Four. Two. It was his touchstone in more than five years as England head coach. Great players, such as Paul Scholes, were sacrificed to it; tournament campaigns drifted listlessly, lost in his thrall to it. There was never time for anything else. It took an injury crisis that wiped out his strike-force for Eriksson to try an alternative and even then, reluctantly.

Now, with a month to prepare and a team who have evolved daily with barely a common language between them, Eriksson sent his players out at Upton Park: four, two, three, one. Oh, Sven, you impostor. Five years of wondering “why won’t he try something different, just in a friendly?” then you pitch up at City and show us the coaching intellect the FA should have been getting for £5 million.

Eriksson out-thought everybody on Saturday, including, most importantly, Alan Curbishley, his opposite number. From the start, West Ham struggled to get to grips with the breadth of the Swede’s game plan and by the second half Curbishley was so confused that he moved his best player, Matthew Etherington, to left back to accommodate Dean Ashton, negating his only chance of winning the match.

“I didn’t do anything about the way they were going to shape up before the game and I moved too many people around in the second half,” Curbishley said. “Etherington went from wide left to left back, Bobby Zamora started up front and went left, Freddie Ljungberg started on the right then went left and Craig Bellamy started in the middle then went right. I was just trying to get a spark and perhaps it would have been best left alone.”

Yet that is what great managers, like great players, do. They befuddle, they upset. And Eriksson looked a great manager on Saturday.

Inevitably, though, after five years of military 4-4-2 with England, this progression of thought raised more questions than answers. Pressed on his change of heart, Eriksson said that he did not have Elano, who played so wonderfully behind Rolando Bianchi, the striker, during his time with England, but that is a cop-out.

He had Scholes and he ruined him, by keeping him in the outside left position. He had Joe Cole and never once gave him the freedom to dictate a match from the heart of the action. He made conventional use of Wayne Rooney. Yes, Elano, a Brazilian signed from Shakhtar Donetsk in Ukraine for £8 million, is a lovely player, but he is not Ronaldinho. If he were, he would not be at Manchester City.

Eriksson’s supporters will say that he did not believe that English players were capable of embracing new ideas, but he was paid to alter that mindset. As it was, he did not even try. “I am not restricted as I was with England,” Eriksson said. “As an international manager you hope to make the best of the players you have because you cannot buy. Elano is a great player. If you are born Brazilian, it is in your DNA. Then if you have Martin Petrov, a player with a lot of international experience, and some of the others it will be good football. I will not always use that system, but we keep the ball and we have fantasy in our game.”

From the moment Bianchi scored the first goal, seizing on the rewards of a fine run by Elano and a horrible mistake by Luis Boa Morte, City were in control. Ljungberg was an inch away from an equaliser for West Ham, but that is the price one pays for buying players past their peak. Brilliant work from Nedum Onuoha set up Geovanni, who put the game beyond doubt in the 87th minute.

“Tactically, Sven is very sound,” Ljungberg, a fellow Swede, said. “He got it spot on against us and no 4-4-2. Maybe he liked sticking two fingers up at some of the people who criticised him.”

No doubt he did; except all the critics wanted was some of the innovation we saw on Saturday. And had Eriksson gone for it, he may not now be trying to revive his reputation at the second-biggest club in Manchester.

How they rated

West Ham 4-4-2

R Green 8
J Spector 6
A Ferdinand 4
M Upson 6
G McCartney 5
F Ljungberg 5
L Bowyer 4
M Noble 5
L Boa Morte 4
C Bellamy 6
R Zamora 5

Substitutes H Mullins 6 (for Bowyer, 46min), M Etherington 6 (Boa Morte, 46), D Ashton 5 (McCartney, 63) Not used R Wright, D Gabbidon

Manchester City 4-2-3-1

K Schmeichel 7
V Corluka 6
R Dunne 8
M Richards 8
J Garrido Y 7
D Hamann 7
M Johnson 7
S Ireland Y 7
Elano Y 9
M Petrov 8
R Bianchi 7

Substitutes N Onuoha 7 (for Corluca, 61), Geovanni Y (Elano, 79), V Bojinov 6 (Bianchi, 61) Not used J Hart, F Gelson