Manchester City vs Bournemouth match report: Raheem Sterling scores first-half hat-trick

Manchester City 5 Bournemouth 1

Raheem Sterling celebrates one of his goals against Bournemouth (GETTY IMAGES)

When Manchester City last hosted Bournemouth, it was for a Third Division fixture in September 1998 in which Eddie Howe played in the visitors’ midfield. Howe might have transformed Bournemouth’s fortunes as a manager but as the Cherries favourite saw for himself yesterday, it is nothing on the transformation City have undergone.

Such is the embarrassment of riches at manager Manuel Pellegrini’s disposal that the Premier League leaders were able to shrug off the absence of David Silva and Sergio Aguero by putting five goals past Howe’s top-flight newcomers.

There was a first senior hat-trick for England winger Raheem Sterling and two goals for Wilfried Bony, taking his opportunity to shine in the absence of the injured Aguero, who scored five in the 6-1 drubbing of Newcastle a fortnight ago. The consequence was City’s seventh victory in nine league fixtures this term and the perfect boost before a Champions League fixture against Sevilla and the Manchester derby.

The pick of the goals was Sterling’s second, when he broke behind the Bournemouth defence on to a brilliant pass by Kevin De Bruyne before leaving both Steve Cook and Sylvain Distin on their backsides as he cut inside and buried his shot. That made it 3-1 and severed the lifeline given Bournemouth by Glenn Murray’s 20-yard strike seven minutes earlier. It also highlighted how Sterling and De Bruyne, for a combined £98.5million outlay, have brought a new dimension to City’s attacking play.

Pellegrini was delighted with the way Sterling performed in a central role, profiting from the space created by Bony’s powerful presence. “I don’t think Raheem is a striker like Kun (Aguero) or Bony but is player who must improve his finishing,” he said. “He is improving and I am sure this season he will score more goals than when he played for Liverpool.”

The City boss also confirmed he had left captain Vincent Kompany on the bench “because he played for Belgium on Tuesday” despite a club medical report stating he was not fit to play.

Sterling (below) had started the ball rolling with a tap-in from Bony’s lay-off across goal and by the 11th minute it was 2-0 as Bony rolled the ball into an empty net after the Bournemouth goalkeeper, Adam Federici, had spilled a cross from Bacary Sagna. Federici was playing only because Artur Boruc had picked up a thigh injury in the warm-up – another stroke of misfortune for Howe, who has lost four first-team players to long-term injuries this season.

Yet although Dan Gosling was unlucky not to win an early penalty when upended by Nicolas Otamendi, Howe admitted his team had not helped themselves. “It was our first experience of the top four and we didn’t deal with it very well. We have made quite a few individual errors.”

If Federici did brilliantly to turn a De Bruyne shot on to the bar, he was left red-faced by City’s fourth goal. His misunderstanding with Charlie Daniels let Jesus Navas in and though Federici saved the Spaniard’s shot, Sterling drove the loose ball through his legs to complete his hat-trick. This was Bournemouth’s fourth loss in five away games in the Premier League and Bony salted the wound by turning on to a low Navas cross to add a fifth.