Manchester City got their Premier League campaign off to a flying start with a 3-1 win at Wolverhampton Wanderers, thanks to first-half goals by Kevin De Bruyne and Phil Foden plus a late Gabriel Jesus strike on Monday.

The result means there has not been a single drawn match in the opening two rounds of Premier League fixtures and the 44 goals over a single ‘game week’ is a record for the 20-team era.

Wolves beat City home and away last season but Pep Guardiola’s side were full value for their victory despite a strong response from the home side after they went 2-0 down.

Guardiola gave a debut to close-season signing Nathan Ake, the Dutch defender signed from Bournemouth, lining up alongside John Stones in the centre of defence.

While City were given a rest in the first week of the season, due to their August involvement in the Champions League, they were sharp out of the blocks, quickly finding their rhythm.

“Wolves have been a bit of a bogey team for us in the last few seasons. So it’s encouraging to play well,” De Bruyne said.

City will draft in players from the club’s youth academy for Thursday’s League Cup match at home to Bournemouth with manager Pep Guardiola saying he did not have the squad size to compete in two competitions at this stage of the campaign.

“Against Bournemouth we will play most players from the academy and try to keep energy in the Premier League. With the lack of preparation and seven players out, we have to keep the players who played today as fresh as possible,” he said.

City were without several key players at Wolves with Ilkay Guendogan missing after testing positive for Covid-19 and Sergio Aguero and Aymeric Laporte ruled out in advance with injuries.

Bernardo Silva, Joao Cancelo, Oleksandr Zinchenko and Eric Garcia were also sidelined after picking up injuries in training meaning three young players were on the bench.

“The period that we are in and the situation that we had in these last two weeks, I expect that in some moments we suffer, but in general we controlled the game,” said Guardiola.

“Everyone was ready and did well. It was important (to start like this) but of course it is just one game.”

Win for Villa

Aston Villa belatedly got their season up and running with a laboured 1-0 home win against 10-man Sheffield United on Monday as Ezri Konsa’s second-half header proved enough to settle a dour game at Villa Park.