Manchester City 3-1 Liverpool: Stevan Jovetic at the double to down Reds as new signing Mario Balotelli looks on from the stands

• Stevan Jovetic opened the scoring in the 41st minute after Alberto Moreno's mistake inside the penalty area
• Jovetic then doubled the lead, starting and finishing a move involving Samir Nasri, after half-time
• Sergio Aguero took 23 seconds to score after coming on to make it 3-0 to City at the Etihad Stadium
• Rickie Lambert's scrambled rebound in the box went in off Pablo Zabaleta for an own goal late on
• Mario Balotelli was in attendance at the Etihad Stadium hours after completing his £16million move to Liverpool 

It took 23 seconds. Sergio Aguero stepped onto the pitch and, 23 seconds later, the match was over. As Manchester City’s third goal hit the net, Liverpool were done. So close last season, the gulf between the two clubs looked significant on Monday night. There, in Aguero’s goal, Manchester City’s power was encapsulated.

It takes 23 seconds for blood to circulate around the body, but City’s power in the second-half might have frozen it in Liverpool’s veins. No other club in the Premier League has these options. There are some useful teams about this season, but not with City’s irresistible strength in depth. 

To replace David Silva with Jesus Navas, and Edin Dzeko – who may be out for a short while with an injury to his left thigh – with Aguero, is not an option open to any manager bar Manuel Pellegrini. That the two arrivals then combined to take the game beyond Liverpool’s reach merely underlined those incredible resources. Manchester City have a great team – but if you don’t like it, don’t worry, they’ve got another almost as good. 

The second-half display, certainly, was as impressive as it was ominous, as were the bald facts of this victory. Liverpool are the third biggest spending club in the world this summer, after Manchester United and Barcelona, yet they were undone by City’s fourth choice striker. 

Not Aguero – he was merely the icing on the cake – but Stevan Jovetic, the Montenegrin purchased from Fiorentina in 2013 but as yet thwarted by injury and a queue of expensive strikers during his time in Manchester.

Not anymore, it would seem. Paul Scholes, among others, has been calling this as Jovetic’s year and his two goals against such well-fancied opposition, suggested he may be right. 

It is not the first time Jovetic has tormented Liverpool either. In 2009, he scored both goals as Fiorentina helped to dump them out of the Champions League – the last time they competed in the competition before this season.

Back then, a teenage Jovetic was making his name as one of Europe’s most promising young strikers – now he is a real force, still only 24, but coming to the peak of his powers. He took his two goals magnificently, and the second was quite exceptional.

Liverpool enjoyed a promising first-half, and Joe Hart was kept busy in the City goal, even if most of his work was collecting and mopping up, rather than being forced into saves. 

The problem was that City have a defence which, at its best, is capable of keeping dangerous opponents at bay for long periods, while some in the Liverpool ranks are still familiarising themselves with Premier League football at elite level. 

Left-back Alberto Moreno, for instance, was playing his first game following a £15m transfer from Sevilla, and it showed. 

After a solid start, he was at fault for City’s opening goal, scored after 41 minutes, surprised by the sheer pace and physicality of the move. This is a league in which even a moment’s pause can be fatal, and Moreno blinked 

After a dormant spell lasting close to half an hour, City burst into life. Samir Nasri played arguably the finest pass of the match to Silva from the right, and the Spaniard held it up superbly before laying the ball back to the onrushing Jovetic. 

He sped past Moreno who appeared startled by his simple initiative and, before Dejan Lovren had time to adequately cover, Jovetic struck the ball with venom through the legs of goalkeeper Simon Mignolet. 

It was a goal like a lightning strike, explosive, powerful and devastating. Liverpool had plenty of possession and some nice approaches to goal, but nothing like this. When they hit top gear, City were at a different level. 

It was Jovetic’s second, however, that caught the eye and imagination in equal measure. It was a 19 pass move, which is in itself impressive, but the final three exchanges were the flourish that brought the crowd to its feet.

Jovetic fed the ball to Nasri, and made an intuitive run for the return pass, which arrived perfectly and was dispatched with a beautiful finality. Not everything may change around Manchester City this season – maybe not their final league position, if they continue to build on this – but the pecking order of the strikers is likely to be fluid.

When Dzeko suffered his injury after 68 minutes, the fans were initially torn between saluting his manly effort, and delighting in Aguero’s return.  

By the time Navas had taken out five Liverpool players with one pass, and Aguero had fired the ball past Mignolet with his first touch of the game, their minds were made up. This was a good news day, no doubt about it – although the fans of 19 other clubs may beg to differ.

Mario Balotelli or not, Liverpool have their work cut out from here. Sunday brings a visit to Tottenham Hotspur, the early league leaders and a club looking to break into at least the top four under Mauricio Pochettino. 

Lose there and it will be impossible to view their title claims favourably, and they have already drifted out to 16-1. Tottenham under Andre Villas-Boas last season showed how hard it was to lose a great player and adequately assimilate a large group of replacements.  

Liverpool are now trying to prove that selling Elvis and buying The Beatles can work, but while the first-half showed signs of a tunefulness emerging, there was little melody beyond half-time. 

Losing your best players, no matter the fee, is rarely successful – not for Tottenham with Gareth Bale, and maybe not for Liverpool with Luis Suarez, although he would have been banned from this match anyway. Liverpool had good possession but lacked the magic that happened when City got close to goal. Suarez was a magician.

A late 83rd minute own goal from Pablo Zabaleta made the scoreline looked closer than the reality. Hart produced a brilliant save from a Rickie Lambert header and was desperately unlucky that the ball was then bundled over the line by his team-mate. 

Lambert had another chance wasted almost immediately, and Daniel Sturridge went close in the first-half, too, yet Liverpool lacked the clinical touch demonstrated by Manchester City. 

Every club likes to think it will grow stronger as the season progresses, and this may well be true of Liverpool, and Manchester United. But when the champions say there is more where this came from, that message is ominous. Nobody is waiting for the cavalry to arrive at City. It is already here, and on the charge.