MAN CITY 5, AFC BOURNEMOUTH 1
Raheem Sterling scored the first senior hat trick of his career as Manchester City blitzed newly-promoted AFC Bournemouth to stay top of the Barclays Premier League.
The striker looked every inch the £49million he cost City in the summer as he found the net three times, his first treble for the Blues.
And with Wilfried Bony chipping in with two goals, his first of the season, City barely missed injured hotshot Sergio Aguero.
It was also the perfect warm up for City’s Champions League game against Seville on Wednesday.
Manager Manuel Pellegrini was full of praise for Sterling who was pulled off at half time against Newcastle United following a dip in form.
He said: “It was important for Raheem to score three goals in this game and important for him to improve his finishing.
“He is a brilliant young player, but not a striker like Kun (Aguero) or Bony, but as I have mentioned before he must improve his finishing.
“I am sure he will score more goals than he did for Liverpool.”
There was disappointment for Cherries’ manager Eddie Howe who said: “This is our first experience of the top four, and we didn’t do very well.
“We made a lot of individual errors early in the game which made it difficult.”
Howe added it will be an “incredibly tough task” to stay in the Premier League and even more so given the players out with long-term injuries.
City were forced into four changes, all enforced through injury.
Aguero, David Silva, Aleksandar Kolarov and Fernando Reges were replaced by Wilfried Bony, Yaya Toure and Bacary Sagna and Jesus Navas.
Fernando was fit enough to be on the bench, though, while Samir Nasri and Vincent Kompany were also substitutes.
Amazingly this was the first meeting between the two clubs since 1999 when they were both in the third tier of English football.
The players from both sides wore black arms bands in tribute to former City manager Howard Kendall was announced earlier in the day while there was one minute’s applause before kick off.
Bournemouth suffered a blow even before the game kicked off when keeper Artur Boruc was injured in the warm up and had to be replaced by Adam Federici.
They also had the misfortune of being denied an early penalty following a challenge by Nicolas Otamendi on Dan Gosling.
City rode their luck and took the lead in the seventh minute through Sterling’s far post tap in after Fernandinho, Pablo Zabaleta and Bony had been involved in the build up.
It got worse for the Cherries who fell 2-0 behind in the 11th minute when Federici failed to hold a low Sagna cross and Bony had a simple tap in from inside the six-yard box for his first goal of the season.
The Cherries kept plugging away and were rewarded when they halved the deficit after 22 minutes when, after a neat passing move, Murray fired low past Joe Hart from outside the box.
City made it 3-1 just short of the half hour when Kevin de Bruyne released Sterling with a terrific pass and he cut in from the left before slotting a low shot past Federici.
There was an eventful finish to the half with De Bruyne’s effort turned on to the crossbar by Ferderici who made a super stop.
Then in the second minute of stoppage time City added a fourth goal as Sterling completed a hat trick and his fifth goal of the season.
Navas made the break and was denied by Federici only for Sterling to latch on to the loose ball and fire an angled shot through the legs of the keeper.
Federici prevented De Bruyne from adding a fifth goal as he beat out the Belgium’s fiercely struck angled shot. The keeper also kept out another goalbound effort from Bony as City remained rampant attacking.
Sterling had chances to add a fourth goal and City’s fifth as he fired into the side netting and then poked another effort narrowly wide.
City finally added a fifth goal in the last minute as Boney scored his second of the game after a neat turn running on to a Navas cross before firing home from six yards.
And substitute Kelechi Iheancho found the net in stoppage time only for the effort to be ruled out for offside as City finished the game as strongly as they had started it.