What happened?
Burnley generally play to their defensive strengths whenever possible, so to see a more attacking line-up start this game was a brave move.
The fact the Clarets had lost the last three visits by a scoreline of 5-0 probably had Sean Dyche thinking that, even when his teams had tried to sit back and contain City, things hadn’t gone well, so why not have a go?
While it was an ambitious plan, it meant there was more space for City to exploit – and exploit it we did.
There were just six minutes on the clock when Mahrez opened the scoring, with Kevin De Bruyne finding the Algerian in the box and after collecting the pass, he curled it around Bailey Peacock-Farrell.
And it was Mahrez who doubled City’s lead on 21 minutes with Kyle Walker’s quick throw-in catching Burnley out – there was still work to do and as he skipped past one challenge, dropped his shoulder past another defender before thumping a shot in off the post to make it 2-0.
It was the first time since our win at Wolves on the opening day that we’d scored more than one goal in a Premier League game.
And the opening period got even better with another delightful goal.
De Bruyne - drifting right, left, centre or wherever he could cause problems – spotted Mendy’s run into the box on the left and delivered a cross that the French defender expertly volleyed past the keeper for his first City goal in 60 appearances.
Burnley improved after the restart and caused one or two problems but when City shifted up a gear midway through, the Clarets shipped another two goals in the space of three minutes.
Goal No.4 came with a fine nove that saw Mahrez find the overlapping Walker and his low cross was picked up by Jesus who nudged it to Ferran Torres to drill home from eight yards.
Three minutes later, it was five.
Again, a terrific team move saw De Bruyne sweep a ball out Phil Foden – on the pitch for less than 90 seconds – and his excellent cross from the left was headed home by Mahrez at the far post.
Debutant Peacock-Farrell was spared an own goal to make it six with VAR judging Gabriel Jesus to have been an inch or so offside, and few would have wished that on the young keeper who had been worked so hard all afternoon.
