What a difference an early goal makes

That was much more like it. Much more like the City that was so devastating for much of last season and I think it's safe to say the primary reason for it was something we haven't seen enough of this season - an early goal.

At home, scoring early and then going on to win big was a habit that City had last year. In home league games in November and December last season, the first goal was scored in the 16th, 1st, 8th, 14th, 31st and 66th minutes. This lead to wins of 7-0, 6-0, 3-0, 6-3, 2-1 and 1-0. In the last two games, City scored later and didn't win as comfortably.

The benefits of scoring early are huge. It forces the visiting side to try and come forward and attack. Any thoughts of sitting back and defending become pointless and so there is more space to exploit. This season, City haven't scored an early goal often enough, allowing teams to sit back, defend and hit us on the counter-attack. It has worked far too often.

Aside from the early goal, here are a few other thoughts on the game:

• Has Bony already repaid part of his transfer fee through the effect he has had on Dzeko? The first half was by far the best 45 minutes from Dzeko this season.
• Yaya's influence was huge. It has been clear for the past month how much we have missed him, we just don't have another central midfielder like him (who does?). His passing forward into Silva and Nasri put them in much better positions to create than they have been for the past few weeks,
• Finally David Silva is starting to score more goals. This has always been the part of his game that was missing for me. He now has 9 for the season, his best in a Premier League season.
• Newcastle were woeful but a significant part of that was down to the early goal. There defence was set-up very narrow which was probably part of a game plan to frustrate City by denying Silva and Nasri space inside. The first minute penalty meant that plan had gone up in smoke before they'd even started to use it.