Manchester: Manchester City stayed unbeaten and moved top of the Premier League with a 4-1 victory over Aston Villa on Saturday.
Mario Balotelli opened the scoring in the 28th minute and Adam Johnson, Vincent Kompany and James Milner added second-half goals at the Eastlands, where the hosts conceded for the first time this season when Stephen Warnock scored in the 65th minute.
Manchester City moved two points clear of city rivals and defending champions Manchester United with 22 points after the victory.
City again shrugged off the drama surrounding Carlos Tevez's future with the club and manager Roberto Mancini confined striker Edin Dzeko to the bench for the second straight match.
Balotelli scored for the fourth successive game when the Italy striker struck an overhead bicycle kick for an impressive opener as the Italy striker led the attack, with Argentina striker Sergio Aguero also out with an injury.
"I hope that Mario will continue like this," Mancini said. "He's an important player."
Johnson beat goalkeeper Shay Given with a long-range shot two minutes after the restart before Kompany made it 3-0 in the 52nd by heading Johnson's corner beyond the reach of the former City goalkeeper.
Warnock pulled one back for Villa before Milner unleashed a swerving drive from 20 meters out to beat Given.
Tevez faces a club disciplinary hearing after apparently refusing to come off the substitutes bench in a loss at Bayern Munich. Bosnia-Herzegovina striker Dzeko hasn't featured since his public display of dissatisfaction with being taken off during that same Champions League group game last month.
Mancini said the preceding international break forced him to rotate the line-up, with France playmaker Samir Nasri never coming off the bench.
"There are players that arrived two days before the game and they were really tired so it was important that they rest," Mancini said.
Aston Villa have 12 points following their first loss of the season.
In other matches on Saturday, two goals from Anthony Pilkington helped Norwich beat Swansea 3-1 at home for their third win of the season.
Pilkington scored the fastest goal of the Premier League season when he volleyed in after 50 seconds and Norwich was quickly 2-0 up through Russell Martin's header in the 9th minute.
Danny Graham scored his second goal in two games in the 12th to give Swansea hope, but Pilkington struck again in the 63rd to give Norwich a third win in four matches and keep the newly-promoted side ninth in the standings.
Swansea, who came up with Norwich last season, dropped a place to 11th after a fourth away loss in four games.
Meanwhile, defender Chris Samba secured a 1-1 draw for struggling Blackburn against Queens Park Rangers with a first-half headed goal.
Heidar Helguson gave QPR the lead in the 16th minute - the first home goal scored by a QPR player this season. But the home side conceded the equaliser just eight minutes later.
Blackburn are now bottom of the standings.
Elsewhere, Bolton ended a run of five straight losses in the Premier League and moved off the bottom of the standings with a 3-1 win at Wigan.
Mohamed Diame gave the home side hope in the 40th minute when he canceled out Nigel Reo-Coker's fourth-minute opener at the DW Stadium.
But David Ngog scored Bolton in the injury time at the end of the first half, before Chris Eagles secured the points for the visitors in the second minute of second-half added time.
Also, Jonathan Walters and Rory Delap scored in the last 10 minutes to give Stoke a hard-earned 2-0 win over Fulham.
Fulham appeared to be on their way to a second away point of the season before Walters broke the deadlock in the 80th minute by diverting in a Matthew Etherington shot.
After John Arne Riise hit the bar for Fulham, Delap wrapped up the win with a header from an Etherington cross.
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