Manchester City recorded a convincing 4-1 win against Sunderland on Wednesday evening, keeping the pressure on league leaders Chelsea.

After surviving an early scare, Manchester City came from a goal down to score 4, keeping the onus on Chelsea to lead the title chase.

Connor Wickham scored a fortuitous goal after having the goal deflected onto him and into the net courtesy of Pablo Zabaleta. This then brought up unhappy memories of Sunderland’s recent history of 1-0 wins at home against City.

Fortunately, Manchester City’s Sergio Aguero came up with yet another moment of pure brilliance this season, surging past a defender and finishing cleanly at the near post from 16 yards against former teammate Costel Pantillimon,

Sergio Aguero came up with yet another moment of pure brilliance

Aguero then provided the assist for Stefan Jovetic, with a great touch from a Yaya Toure through ball giving Jovetic enough time and space to place the ball through the Sunderland keeper’s legs.

Manchester City right back Pablo Zabaleta got a rare goal after that, but it was another brilliant finish, neatly clipping into the left-hand side of the net. The fullback rarely scores for City, and his reaction to the goal showed just how much it meant to him to get on the score sheet.

Aguero finished off the night with a composed finish from an excellent James Milner ball, completing a fairly one-sided affair.

This was a game for Manchester City that thankfully had little if any negatives. Dedryck Boyata put in a good shift at center-back alongside Demichelis, and Yaya Toure and Fernandinho had little more to do than feed the ball into the front lines.

Sunderland asked questions of City down the left hand side initially, perhaps testing the relationship of Zabaleta and Boyata but after the first 20 minutes this avenue was shut down pretty firmly.

Manchester City now face a run of matches that are basically must win games until at least the Arsenal game on the 18th of Jan. City face Everton, Roma West Brom and Crystal Palace amongst others, and dropped points would only hand the impetus to Chelsea.