Shaun Goater will have been thanking his lucky stars that he had already won the game for Manchester City when he missed an open goal at the end of Saturday's 2-1 victory over West Brom.

The Bermudian striker had scored the second of City's goals at the Hawthorns on 71 minutes and had a chance to double his tally late on.

But with the goal gaping, the Bermudian hit the base of the post from all of six yards and the chance went begging.

Thankfully, it did not matter and after waiting until the previous weekend to record their first away win of the season, the Blues have now won two on the trot.

Manager Kevin Keegan acknowledged Goater should have had a brace but said the miss had not worried him unduly.

"The great thing is Shaun Goater will not lose any sleep over missing that late chance," he said. "He'll be the first to say he should have scored, but I've seen great players miss easy chances so it's nothing to be ashamed of."

For the time being at least, Goater appears to be Keegan's choice as partner for Frenchman Nicolas Anelka and despite the gaffe he did his cause no harm against West Brom.

His first chance came in the 13th minute when, set free by Eyal Berkovic, he hit an angled shot that was cleared for a corner.

The Israeli was once again the provider minutes later but this time Goater failed to make contact with the pass.

Goater and Berkovic then combined to enable Anelka to open the scoring for City with a neat finish in the 51st minute.

But the Blues were pegged back 11 minutes later when a free kick to the home side was moved ten yards forward after Berkovic encroached. Neil Clement fired the ball through the wall for the equaliser.

Goater, however, was not to be denied and he bagged his second goal of a truncated season when Anelka drew the 'keeper before laying the ball on a plate for his team-mate to sidefoot home.

The victory sees City in 14th place in the Premiership with 14 points from 12 games.

Tomorrow they take on near neighbours Wigan in the Worthington Cup while Saturday sees the biggest game of this and many a year when Manchester United are their opponents.

Kyle Lightbourne's search for his 100th League goal goes on. The Bermudian, denied his century last week when a 35-yard shot deflected into the net off a team-mate during Macclesfield's win over Oxford, was in the team that lost 2-1 at home to Shrewsbury on Saturday.