Manchester City beats Wolves 3-1 in Premier League

Manchester City beat Wolverhampton Wanderers 3-1 on Saturday despite losing Vincent Kompany to a red card, keeping a five-point lead at the top of the Premier League.

City went ahead early in the second half when Edin Dzeko converted a loose ball after Sergio Aguero had pounced on some hesitant play by goalkeeper Wayne Hennessey, who then pushed David Silva's shot into the path of Aleksandar Kolarov for 2-0 in the 67th minute.

Kompany was dismissed for bringing down Kevin Doyle and Stephen Hunt scored the resulting penalty with 15 minutes left but substitute Adam Johnson wrapped up victory in injury time.

While City stayed ahead of Manchester United, Wolves are now winless in eight league games.

City manager Roberto Mancini recalled most of the players who started last weekend's 6-1 derby win at United, although Mario Balotelli was only named as a substitute. Only Kolarov, Samir Nasri and Dzeko survived from the midweek League Cup win over the same opponents.

Wolves manager Mick McCarthy made six alterations from the cup game, which City won 5-2.

Hennessey excelled in the first half, pushing a shot by Nasri over the bar and pushing Dzeko's effort past the post, but then failed to deal with a simple back pass in the 52nd. Aguero challenged the goalkeeper and the ball spun out to Dzeko, who lifted it into the net for a fifth goal in three games.

Hennessey then parried Silva's 67th-minute shot from the edge of the box into the path of Kolarov, who tucked away an easy finish.

City was cruising but was reduced to 10 men when Hart spilled a shot from Adlene Guedioura and Kompany was adjudged to have impeded Doyle as the forward attempted to get to the rebound. Kompany was shown a straight red card and Hunt scored but the home side prevailed when Johnson collected Yaya Toure's pass and fired in.