Man City 5-0 Aston Villa

Manchester City maintained their
unbeaten start to the season in some
style on Saturday as they crushed
Aston Villa 5-0 at the Etihad Stadium.
David Silva opened the scoring for the
Premier League champions, before two
goals apiece from Argentine strike duo
Sergio Aguero and Carlos Tevez put a
rather lop-sided slant on the final
scoreline.
A comprehensive victory was enough
to take City back to the top of the table,
for a few hours at least, while out-of-
sorts Villa tumbled into the drop zone
as a result of Reading's victory over
Everton.
Roberto Mancini's men dominated
possession throughout, but struggled
to break a stubborn Villa defence down
during a scrappy first half and left
themselves open to counter.
Vincent Kompany almost put through
his own net at one stage, but Joe Hart
came to his rescue, but City's pressure
finally paid off two minutes before half-
time when Villa failed to deal with a
Samir Nasri corner and, after seeing
the ball ricochet around the box, Silva
was in the right place to bundle home.
Paul Lambert likely told his troops at
the interval that there was still all to
play for, but within nine minutes of the
re-start City had doubled their lead in
contentious circumstances.
Aguero calmly stroked home from the
spot, but the awarding of a penalty for
an apparent handball by Andreas
Weimann left Villa incensed - with it
their opinion that the forward did not
make contact with the ball as it fizzed
past him.
Villa's mood went from bad to worse
as the afternoon wore on, with
seemingly everything going against
them right now.
City, though, were now in complete
control of the tie and netted twice in
the space of as many minutes to wrap
up the points.
Tevez rolled home the Blues' second
penalty of the game following a
handball by Barry Bannan and Aguero
made it four on 67 minutes as he led a
swift counter and fired past Brad
Guzan at his near post via the aid of a
deflection.
The final act of a game bossed by City
saw Tevez convert a low cross from
Nasri, with the goal left gaping in front
of him.
It has been suggested at times this
season that City have been performing
below their best, but such accusations
could not be levelled at them on
Saturday and they will be hoping to
have ignited their title defence in front
of their own supporters.