City stroll marred by Aguero injury

Manchester City 3 Stoke City 0

Tony Pulis’s side have a deserved reputation for holding no respect for reputations, for fighting tooth and nail in the face of overwhelming odds, but, as has been the case for the last handful of seasons, those qualities were embarrassingly lacking at the Etihad Stadium yesterday.

Stoke brought the best current unbeaten run in the Premier League, a sequence of some 10 games, to the Etihad and, claimed Pulis, fielded four attack-minded forward players in an attempt to add to City’s recent run of indifferent results.