Manchester City kept their first clean sheet of the season with an emphatic and fully deserved win over Sunderland.
Aleksander Kolarov opened the scoring with a fine free kick after Sunderland defender Carlos Cuellar needlessly fouled Carlos Tevez just outside the penalty area.
Sergio Aguero, coming back from an injury received in City's 3-2 win over Southampton at the start of the season, scored his first goal of the season to make it 2-0. The scoring was complete with James Milner's 89th mintues free kick, with some assistance from black cats midfielder Craig Gardner, coming off his head in the process.
It was City's first clean sheet since beating Newcastle at St James' Park back in May and Roberto Mancini will be delighted with arguably his team's best performance of the season so far as for long periods they were camped in the Sunderland half of the pitch.
It was a perfect start for the Premier League champions on the fourth minute, after Cuellar missed the ball completely and brought down the Argentinian striker, left footed Kolarov stepped up to smash the ball past the helpless Simon Mingolet.
The black cats responded well to going behind initially and had a fair share of the ball along with a few decent chances, including Steven Fletcher's deflected effort which went straight into the hands of City keeper Joe Hart after Stephane Sessegnon's early volley which flew off target.
After half time Sunderland had a good spell where they threatened twice to equalise through Fletcher and once with former City winger Adam Johnson who made a fine run to be one-on-one with Hart but Kolarov, impressive both up front and at the back, put in a professional tackle to remove any danger.
Eventually City settled down and began to dominate possession and territory as they did for much of the first half, with Sunderland struggling to keep up with the host's tempo. It almost seemed inevitable that their breathtaking play, similar to how they played for much of last season, was to be rewarded.
And it came on the 60th minute from Augero after some wonderful build up play involving Kolarov who passed through to the young Argentinian whose fantastic finish was thumped past Mingolet.
By now the game was beyond reach for the visitors, who were the only team to be come away from the Etihad last season with a 3-3 draw after being 3-1 up with minutes remaining, with City surely banking all three points.
But the scoring wasn't over as on the 89th minute Craig Gardner, who had a difficult game in defence dealing with various City players, got his head in the way to try and prevent James Milner's free kick but couldn't stop it summing up Sunderland's afternoon.
City though, will be pleased with this performance as it was the perfect response to the disappointment of the Champions League game midweek and leaves them in great spirits going into the international break.
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