De Bruyne hits four as Manchester City thrash Wolves to keep cushion at top

After Kevin De Bruyne rolled in his and Manchester City’s fourth goal, Pep Guardiola jumped into the arms of his assistant, Rodolfo Borrell. By then Guardiola had already ditched the mammoth black puffer coat, and the gloves have long been off in their pursuit of retaining their Premier League crown.

De Bruyne’s peerless performance helped restore City’s three-point advantage over Liverpool at the top and there are now only two hurdles between them and a fourth league title in five seasons. Raheem Sterling added a fifth goal with seven minutes to play but it was De Bruyne, who borrowed Erling Braut Haaland’s meditating celebration as he completed a 17-minute first-half hat-trick, fuelled this spectacular and unerring rout of Wolves.

In retrospect, given the mood he started in here, flashing a brilliant ball across the box that was a split-second from picking out Phil Foden with barely a minute on the clock, perhaps it should not have been a surprise that De Bruyne chalked up his first Manchester City hat-trick inside 24 minutes, the third quickest from the start of a game in Premier League history. Every outfield City player joined him to celebrate each goal, the third of which was a beauty.

It stemmed from a City throw-in. Joao Cancelo located Raheem Sterling, who was challenged by Rayan Ait-Nouri, and when the ball spilled free De Bruyne gleefully took over the baton, taking a few purposeful strides and carefully nudging the ball into a shooting position before rattling a curling shot into the bottom corner with what is supposed to be his weaker left foot. Then came the celebration, surely a nod to City’s new superstar. Welcome to Manchester.

De Bruyne got things up and running at the end of a typically calculated City