Manchester City continued their excellent record against Watford to move top of the league table with Sterling’s and Bernardo Silva’s brace.
Pep Guardiola channeled his inner Ossie Ardiles as he played with five forwards to smash through Watford’s defensive plan and return to the top for the first time since they were crowned champions last season.
Not since Ardiles threw caution to the wind and played five upfronts for Tottenham in the Nineties has a team looked so attack-minded as City were yesterday.
What looked on paper a 4-3-3 turned out to be a front five with Bernardo Silva and Ilkay Gundogan joining Jack Grealish as central strikers with Raheem Sterling and Phil Foden high up on either flank.
The outcome was Claudio Ranieri’s tactic to frustrate City was torn apart pretty quickly with his defenders not knowing who to mark.
Aymeric Laporte had already seen one header cleared off the line by Joao Pedro before City scored after four minutes when Foden was left in acres of space on the left to find Sterling to head in unopposed.
It was no exaggeration to say City could have repeated the six goals they put past Watford in the 2019 FA Cup final before the half-hour.
In-form Bernardo did eventually strike either side of half-time to take his personal tally to five goals in seven games. By the time Cucho Hernandez replied late for Watford, the visitors were comfortably on their way to a seventh win in a row.
Sterling’s early breakthrough threatened to open the floodgates. He forced a full-length dive from Daniel Bachmann and Grealish then headed straight at the Watford keeper from Foden’s corner.
The visitors were passing the ball as crisply as their white shirts and poor Grealish did everything but score. The £100million man was denied by the legs of Bachmann and later on hit the top of the crossbar with a deflected shot.
To Watford’s credit, they tried to get forward as much as they could with 20 percent possession. For brief periods Guardiola even had to reshuffle back to a regulation midfield three.
More often it remained a front five and City had so many players in the final third, Grealish inadvertently blocked Gundogan’s goal-bound shot.
Emmanuel Dennis gave Ederson his first action in City’s goal with a shot to the near post and tested him again with a free-kick after Ruben Dias fouled Joshua King.
City’s overdue second goal arrived after 31 minutes. Gundogan’s shot was parried to Bernardo and he got a lucky ricochet before slipping in from an acute angle.
Ranieri responded to a first-half drubbing by making two changes in the interval, with Tom Cleverley among those making way — the second time in a week he’d been hooked after 45 minutes.
His replacement Juraj Kucka was immediately into action to get an important block on Gundogan as City threatened to dribble in a third. Dennis’s appeal for a penalty went unheard while at the other end City again wasted chances to add a third.
Gundogan shot over when set up by Sterling and then Sterling tried to do it all his own when teammates were better placed and was finally dispossessed by Craig Cathcart.
Bernardo showed both his teammates how to finish with a brilliant shot into the top corner for the third goal after 63 minutes.
It didn’t seem an obvious chance when he received a pass from Kyle Walker on the right-angle of the area. But it made little difference to the in-form Portuguese international as he curled left-footed, giving keeper Bachmann no chance.
If poor Watford hadn’t suffered enough, Guardiola sent on De Bruyne for Gundogan after 67 minutes with Grealish also making way for Riyad Mahrez. Watford did pull a goal back, with their substitute Hernandez registering at the second time of asking after 74 minutes.
The Colombian was unlucky when his initial shot struck the inside of the post. But when it rebounded to him, he tried again and this time found the net via a deflection off the diving Ederson.
Just two points separate the three title protagonists City, Liverpool and Chelsea and it promises to be an enthralling battle between them.