London: Christian Pulisic hit the first hat-trick of his career as Chelsea crushed Burnley 4-2 on Saturday while Manchester City overcame a sluggish start to beat Aston Villa and increase the pressure on Liverpool. Away from the top end of the Premier League table, pressure is mounting on Everton boss Marco Silva after the Merseysiders' fifth defeat in their past six league games. US international Pulisic, who was without a goal for Chelsea since his £58 million ($74 million) move from Borussia Dortmund, had not started a Premier League match for Frank Lampard's young side since August. But he made an emphatic case for himself at Turf Moor with a "perfect" hat-trick -- scoring with his left foot, right foot and head.

The 21-year-old capitalised on some indecision from Burnley to drive into the penalty area, producing a stepover before steering a low left-footed shot into the corner of Nick Pope's net midway through the first period. The former Dortmund winger doubled his tally for the Blues with a second goal just before half-time, benefiting from a big deflection off Ben Mee, and grabbed his third with a second-half header. Willian added a fourth for rampant Chelsea in the 58th minute to take the score to 4-0 and despite late goals for Jay Rodriguez and Dwight McNeil, the visitors avoided further shocks to win 4-2. "It's my first professional hat-trick so I nearly forgot the match ball," Pulisic told the BBC. "Luckily my teammates helped me out.