Kevin De Bruyne, Kelechi Iheanacho, Raheem Sterling and Ilkay Gundogan fire in goals in 4-0 win for the Manchester club to continue manager Pep Guardiola’s stunning start as boss
Cityu00c3u00a2u00c2u0080u00c2u0099s Raheem Sterling (left) and AFC Bournemouthu00c3u00a2u00c2u0080u00c2u0099s Harry Arter battle for possession on Saturday.
City’s Raheem Sterling (left) and AFC Bournemouth’s Harry Arter battle for possession on Saturday. Pic/Getty Images
London: Pep Guardiola’s stunning start at Manchester City continued as the Premier League leaders crushed Bournemouth 4-0 at the Etihad Stadium. Goals from Kevin De Bruyne, Kelechi Iheanacho, Raheem Sterling and Ilkay Gundogan secured City’s eighth successive win—an unprecedented feat for the club at the start of a season since Guardiola took charge.
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The only downside for City was the sending-off of Nolito for aiming a headbutt at Adam Smith in the 86th minute, but the performance as a whole was highly impressive. Guardiola’s men were commanding in possession and scintillating on the counter-attack. The Spaniard is threatening to mould a highly talented squad into something even greater than the sum of their parts. From the back, where Aleksandar Kolarov again looked composed at centre-half, to a forward line formidable even without the suspended Sergio Aguero, City were magnificent and too strong for Bournemouth.
Golden City start
The hosts, and De Bruyne in particular, were in the mood from kick-off with the Belgian needing just eight seconds to register the first shot. Artur Boruc saved comfortably but the tone was set. City spent most of the 15 minutes encamped in the Bournemouth half and the seemingly inevitable breakthrough came after Jack Wilshere, making an ignominious first Cherries start, tripped Nolito. De Bruyne looked to be eyeing up the top corner at the resulting free-kick but instead cleverly rolled the ball under the wall to wrong-foot Boruc.
A quick break almost led to another straight away as De Bruyne fed Nolito but the Spaniard shot straight at Boruc. Bournemouth could not stem the flow, however, and after De Bruyne led another raid and released Sterling, the England forward unselfishly teed up a second goal for Iheanacho.
No chance for Bournemouth
Only rarely did Bournemouth break into the opposing half, let alone reach the final third. When Joshua King did get behind the defence and squeeze the ball past Claudio Bravo, Nicolas Otamendi tidied up with little alarm. Were it not for Boruc, City could have won even more convincingly. The only blotch for City came in the closing moments as Smith caught Nolito and the Spaniard angrily pushed his head towards him.
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