Dominant and ruthless display from City as they deepen Watford’s relegation worries with 4-0 defeat

Raheem Sterling continued his perfect goalscoring form as he netted twice to deepen managerless Watford’s relegation fears as Manchester City recorded a resounding 4-0 win at Vicarage Road.

Sterling’s first-half double put City in control, with his superb opener added when he slotted home the rebound after Ben Foster saved his initial penalty.

Phil Foden added a third after Ben Foster had parried a Sterling shot before Aymeric Laporte nodded in from Kevin de Bruyne’s free-kick.

City’s fourth straight league win could have been even more emphatic but Gabriel Jesus had an injury-time header ruled out for offside.

The defeat, coupled with Aston Villa’s win over Arsenal on Tuesday, means the Hornets’ battle to stay up will go to the final day of the season on Sunday when they visit Arsenal.

Pearson became the Hornets’ third managerial casualty of the campaign on Monday, leaving Under-23 coach Hayden Mullins and his assistant Graham Stack in charge for their final two games.

And they could hardly have had a tougher first assignment than against City, who completed the double over them with this win, at an aggregate score of 12-0 – a joint top-flight record for one team against another in a single season.

With goal difference potentially a crucial deciding factor going into the weekend, this could well be important to Watford.

The defeat leaves the Hornets 18th, level on points but a goal worse off than Villa, with both three points ahead of 19th-placed Bournemouth.

Villa’s last-day opponents West Ham, on 37 points, are not yet safe from the drop, although a point from their game in hand at Manchester United on Wednesday will secure survival.

Manchester City, on the other hand, are a wounded team who at the weekend saw another road to a trophy blocked courtesy of that FA Cup semi-final defeat by Arsenal and they couldn’t have asked for better opponents to get things back on track.

Watford haven’t beaten City in 18 games in all competitions – a run stretching back to March 1989, and one that includes a 6-0 loss in last season’s FA Cup final and an 8-0 thrashing in September’s reverse league fixture.

City now have a 13th straight win against the Hornets, during which the aggregate score is 50-6, and they barely seemed to get out of second gear to achieve it.

Stats and facts from the match

• Manchester City have scored 12 goals against Watford in the Premier League this season without conceding once – this goal difference of 12 over the two fixtures is the largest in the top flight since 1947-48, when Arsenal also scored 12 without reply against Grimsby Town.
• Hayden Mullins is the first manager to see his side fail to score in each of his first three Premier League games since Frank de Boer with Crystal Palace in 2017-18 (four games).
• Manchester City have scored 12 goals against Watford in the Premier League this season, a joint-record for most goals against an opponent in a single campaign in the competition – Blackburn put 12 past Nottingham Forest in 1995-96 (conceding one) and Tottenham did so against Wigan in 2009-10 (also conceding one).
• Since Watford returned to the Premier League in 2015-16, they have conceded 37 league goals against Manchester City, at least seven more than any side has conceded against another in this fixture in this time.
• Manchester City midfielder Kevin de Bruyne registered his 19th league assist of the season, equalling Mesut Ozil in 2015-16 and one behind Thierry Henry’s league record of 20 in 2002-03.
• In Phil Foden’s 16 starts in all competitions for Manchester City in 2019-20, he has been directly involved in 14 goals (six goals and eight assists).
• Watford goalkeeper Ben Foster has lost on each of his past 13 starts against Manchester City in the Premier League, the longest run of defeats by a starting player against a specific side in Premier League history.
• Raheem Sterling’s penalty, the rebound for which he scored, was the fifth Manchester City have missed in the Premier League this season; no side have ever missed more in a single Premier League campaign (Liverpool in 2011-12 and Spurs in 1994-95 also missed five each).
• Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola has made 143 changes to their starting XIs in the Premier League this season, the most by any manager in a single season in the competition’s history.