Premier League: Manchester City 3 Wigan 0

Manchester City maintained their perfect start to the season with an impressive 3-0 victory over Wigan Athletic at the Etihad Stadium.

A Sergio Aguero hat-trick wrapped up the three points to leave Roberto Mancini’s men at the top of the Premier League table with 15 goals in their opening four games.

Mancini gave Carlos Tevez a starting berth in place of the Premier League’s leading scorer Edin Dzeko with the Argentine looking to re-establish his reputation with the Eastlands faithful following a summer of transfer speculation that only served to damage his reputation.

The home side started with the greater endeavour and should have taken the lead within the opening five minutes, with Adam Johnson blazing over from inside the area after controlling Gael Clichy’s deep cross.

The pressure from City was becoming impossible to contain and the Wigan resistance was broken after only 13 minutes when David Silva, in irresistible form, played in Aguero after a fine bit of skill and the former Atletico Madrid man drilled home.

City were unwilling to rest on their laurels and had a marvellous opportunity to double their advantage less than five minutes later when the blistering Silva was brought down by his compatriot Adrian Lopez in the area.

Tevez was given the chance to make it two from the penalty spot but tamely scuffed his effort into the arms of Ali Al-Habsi.

The visitors, to their credit, refused to go into their shell but as each attack mounted from Martinez’s men, an ominous counter was invariably forthcoming from their hosts. Chances for Johnson and Aguero were wasted but not quite as embarrassingly as a spurned effort from Micah Richards, who conspired to hit the bar from seven yards out after breaking the offside trap wonderfully.

The visitors came out in the second period with impressive movement going forward. Ben Watson, breaking from midfield, nearly latched onto a Hugo Rodallega through-ball but was beaten to it by Joe Hart.

It was an impressive showing from the visitors but any chance they had of getting back into the game was soon quashed by Aguero, with the Argentine finishing off some sublime build-up play from Kolo Toure, Silva and substitute Samir Nasri with a neat finish past Al-Habsi.

With the ruthlessness of true title contenders, the hosts turned the knife with another shortly after and it was Aguero once again, profiting from a magnificent ball from Silva to all but end the contest.

It was a performance worthy of a hat-trick from the Argentine, who has taken his tally to six goals in four City appearances.