City doubled their advantage soon after when Bony capitalised on a calamitous spill from Federici to slot into the gaping net.Federici was helpless as Sterling tapped in from three yards, after Pablo Zabaleta had charged forward from right-back to head Fernandinho’s angled pass across goal and Bony had touched on. I have had a lot of injuries and been sick, and feel that is all away from me now.
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Glenn Murray did give the visitors hope with his first-half goal reducing their deficit to 2-1, but it wasn’t enough as the hosts were far too clinical and enjoyed a comfortable afternoon’s work as they threatened to score with every attack.
Sterling said: “The movement up front and the passing from midfield has been really good in the last few games and we’ve been playing some good, free-flowing stuff”.
Manager Manuel Pellegrini was pleased with the performance of his players – in particular, that of Sterling, who was hauled off at half time in his side’s 6-1 victory over Newcastle United in the last fixture before the recently-concluded global break. He’s young and will continue to get better.
“I think it was important for Raheem to score three goals”, said the Chilean, whose side visit third-place Manchester United in the Manchester derby next weekend. Sterling opened the scoring for City and posted a hat-trick before half-time as City ran riot.
From then it was all Manchester City and Sterling, as the winger added his second in the 28th minute and completed his hat-trick in first half stoppage time and effectively end the game as a contest.
“He didn’t lose confidence after the Newcastle game, because I spoke to him as I took him off”, Pellegrini said.
Kompany played 58 minutes without a setback as Belgium won 3-1 against Israel in Brussels in midweek. But all the players can have a bad day. He just played 45 minutes in the Champions League [against Borussia Monchengladbach] before he got in an injury.
After having a solid penalty claim for Nicolas Otamendi’s challenge on Dan Gosling denied, Bournemouth’s disappointment was compounded when they found themselves behind inside seven minutes.
Howe has agreed an extension to his current contract that will keep him at the club until 2020 and his immediate task is to overcome the absence of Tommy Elphick, the centre-back and club captain, who has been ruled out for ten weeks after undergoing ankle surgery. It was our first experience of the top four and we didn’t deal with it very well. He brought people into the game and scored goals when he needed to. “It made it very hard for us”.
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Bournemouth’s preparations had been disrupted when goalkeeper Artur Boruc aggravated a thigh injury in the warm-up and had to be replaced by Adam Federici.
