MADRID (Reuters) - Argentine striker Sergio Aguero scored three hat-tricks for Manchester City to regain the top of the English Premier League after a 6-0 win over Chelsea on Sunday.
Manchester City rose to 65 points in the lead, ahead of goals on Liverpool's equal footing, which fell to second place. Citi played a game more than Red.
Chelsea, who have lost their sixth defeat of the season and the third in their last four games, are on 50 points in fifth place, one point clear of fourth-place qualification for next season's Champions League.
Manchester City, the reigning champions for the second season in a row, had absolute control of the game and could have scored more goals in the wake of a complete collapse from Chelsea, who suffered the heaviest loss of their history in the Premiership.
With that result, the defending champions responded to their 2-0 loss to Chelsea in their first round of the competition on December 8, which caused the team to lose the lead at the time.
Rahim Stirling opened the scoring early in the fourth minute, before Aguero added the second and third goals in the 13th and 19th minutes, while German Elkay Gundogan scored the fourth goal in the 25th minute.
Aguero returned to the net by scoring the fifth goal of the City and the third in the 56th minute of a penalty, to set himself a hero of the match undisputed.
Top scorers
Aguero was the top scorer in the competition with Egyptian international Mohamed Salah, who scored 17 goals and became the league's top scorer in 2019 with eight goals, four more than his closest rivals.
Aguero has scored eight goals in Chelsea's last six games against the Blue Team, and former England legend Alain Shearer has been the world's number one player for the trophies in a single game on the date of the tournament, having scored 11 hat-tricks.
Rahim Stirling ended Manchester City's goalscorer after scoring the sixth goal in the 80th minute to double the suffering of Chelsea, whose Italian coach Maurizio Sari has been threatened with dismissal in the face of bad team results in the recent period.
For the first time since December 1990, Chelsea have received four or more goals away in two consecutive matches. The Londoners lost 4-0 at Bournemouth on January 30 in the 24th round.
The two teams will meet again on 24 February at the Wembley Stadium in London, in the final of the League Cup.