Manchester City have moved to the summit of the Premier League log with a 3-1 victory away at Watford following a slip by Chelsea in their loss to West Ham United.
The defending champions almost easily cruised to victory going three goals up in just over an hour before the Hornets got a consolation goal.
Raheem Sterling gave the visitors the lead before Bernando Silva, who has been in impressive form scored a brace, his third goal in two appearances and Cucho Fernandez came off the bench to grab a consolation for Claudio Ranieri's men.
The Italian made just one forced change to his team that narrowly lost to Chelsea in midweek as Adam Masina was out injured and he was replaced by Danny Rose.
Pep Guardiola made five changes to his own team with the return of Jack Grealish to the first team for the first time since the beginning of November, along with Phil Foden, Aymeric Laporte, Kyle Walker and Ilkay Gundogan.
The visitors were almost ahead after two minutes when Laporte got a close range header that was cleared off the line by Joao Pedro before finally going ahead two minutes later.
Gundogan released Foden on the left and he had the whole space he needed to comfortably put a pinpoint cross to the center where Sterling was left unmarked and had a simple finish to give the Champions the lead.
Daniel Bachmann kept Watford in the game for much if the early stages when he made series of saves to deny Grealish and Sterling before the half hour mark. Watford's first real chance came from Emmanuel Dennis, who called Ederson Moraes into action in the 16th minutes.
Just as Watford's fans were beginning to have high hopes of getting back into the game, City doubled their lead. Another save from Bachmann, this time unfortunately falling to Silva, who slots home for his team's second.
The Austrian goalkeeper continued his heroics and thanks to him, the game could have been done within the hour as he made two glorious saves to deny Sterling from close range and a Foden curling effort, which he saved onto the base of the bar.
He could only do enough to keep City at bay as the visitors finally got their third. Bernando Silva getting past Danny Rose on the right side, before sending a long range curler into the top corner for his brace.
With about 15 minutes left, the Hornets pulled one back, but it was a little too late to conjure anything of a comeback.
Half time substitute, Cucho Fernandez managed to cut out to the right before hitting a low strike towards the far post that came back off the post and he was first to react to the rebound and scored with a sliding effort from an acute angle.
Concluding Thoughts
Manchester City knew what they had to do, which was to win and go top after Chelsea's slump and Liverpool's victory, which was what they did and comfortably so.
Pep Guardiola is yet to lose to Watford, having won all of his 10 Managerial encounters against them.
Watford continue to struggle under Ranieri as they now sit 17th on the table, just three points adrift of the drop zone after registering just one win, which was against Manchester United in their last five games.
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