A convincing 3-0 victory for Manchester City over ten-man West Ham was overshadowed by an injury to Micah Richards.

The England defender clashed heads with City team-mate Tal Ben Haim shortly after the break and was taken to hospital having been given oxygen and a neck brace just prior to being stretchered off the Eastlands pitch.

West Ham's Mark Noble was sent off in the first half for a second bookable offence putting the visitors up against it.

The goals came from Daniel Sturridge midway through the second half with a further two from Elano, against a deflated looking Hammers.

Mark Hughes, the City manager, handed a debut to 22-year-old Vincent Kompany following his transfer fromHamburg last week and he delivered a man-of-the-match performance.

The Belgium international was one of four changes from last week's defeat to Aston Villa. Michael Ball, Stephen Ireland and Sturridge were all included in Hughes's starting eleven.

Dean Ashton and Scott Parker had recovered from calf and thigh injuries following last week's win over Wigan.

City could have gone ahead in the 12th minute after a move started by a Lucas Neill corner. A chance by Ireland was cleared off the line by Calum Davenport and in the ensuing melee the ball rebounded off the crossbar.

In the 37th minute, Noble earned his second yellow card for a challenge on Johnson and his sending off changed the course of the game, watched by Fabio Capello.

After the break, West Ham's Hayden Mullins came on for Freddie Sears, who had ironically replaced Carlton Cole who got injured following a clash with Ben Haim.

Then came the Richards' incident and medics worked hard on the pitch for more than five minutes before carrying him off on a stretcher.

From the downer of Richards' injury, City emerged to the upper of three goals in an 11-minute period. Sturridge scored his first goal in the City of Manchester stadium in the 65th minute after Matthew Upson failed to clear the ball, leaving the youngster to rifle the ball into the roof of the net from 10 yards left-footed past keeper Rob Green.

Elano scored City's second with 20 minutes after Ireland dinked the ball across from the right of the box with his back to goal and the Brazilian did well with a ball at a difficult height to control to lodge the ball home left-footed into the bottom righthand corner of Green's goal.

On 76 minutes, Ireland showed his pace to outrun a defender to the right-hand byline and then cut the ball back for Elano to easily tap the ball home from just outside the six-yard box.