Manchester City buried the curse the Stadium of Light has held over them for the last four seasons with this stylish and comprehensive victory against a Sunderland side who seemed to be paying the physical price for their 0-0 draw with Chelsea.

“It was difficult to play these two games consecutively,” said Sunderland boss Gus Poyet. “We thought we were strong enough physically and mentally but that wasn’t the case. When you’re not at that level against a team of this quality you pay the price.”

His team started the brighter and took the lead through Connor Wickham after 19 minutes. He latched onto a delightful through ball from Sebastian Larsson but it ran away from him after a poor first touch. As Pablo Zabaleta slid in an attempted to clear the danger the ball ricocheted off Wickham’s shin and past Joe Hart.

The home fans didn’t have much time to celebrate as less than two minutes later parity was restored. Stevan Jovetic found Sergio Aguero on the edge of the area and the Argentinian neatly nutmegged Sebastian Coates before hammering the ball past Costel Pantilimon.

The equaliser settled the visitors and they went ahead seven minutes before the break. Aguero turned provider, receiving a through ball from Yaya Toure with his back to goal and teeing it up for the advancing Stevan Jovetic, who made no mistake.

Zabaleta grabbed a delightful third 10 minutes into the second half, playing a one-two with Samir Nasri on the edge of the area before chipping Pantilimon from an angle. City’s dominance was now total and their fourth came in the 71st minute when substitute James Milner found Aguero in the box and he made no mistake slotting past Pantilimon.

His performance left City manager Manuel Pellegrini full of praise: “I’m sure he’s one of the five best players in the world, he’s not just scoring; he’s playing well.”