Jurgen Klopp disproved his own words of warning as Liverpool crushed Hull City 5-1 at Anfield yesterday to climb into the top four of the Premier League. In the day’s other big game, Sergio Aguero scored twice as Manchester City made it 10 wins in as many games this season with a 3-1 victory away to Swansea.
 Klopp had written in his programme notes of the uniquely competitive nature of the Premier League, pointing out that there are no easy games in England’s top flight. Liverpool’s manager also claimed that describing Hull as “just hard to beat” was doing them a disservice.
 Hull won their first two league games and were unbeaten away from home in both the Premier League and the English Football League Cup, in which they are through to the last 16. But both those theories were swiftly shot to pieces by a rampant Liverpool side, who scored three goals before half-time and could easily have doubled that tally.
 Hull’s cause was not helped by the dismissal of Ahmed Elmohamady after half an hour as the defender blocked a shot from Philippe Coutinho on the line with his arm. James Milner slotted home the resulting penalty to make it 2-0, but even before then Hull had never looked likely to end a record of never having won at Anfield.
 Liverpool, playing in front of Anfield’s new Main Stand for only the second time, did as they pleased almost from the start as they made it an unhappy 54th birthday for Hull’s caretaker manager Mike Phelan.
 Last season, before Klopp replaced Brendan Rodgers as manager, they scored three goals in their opening six league games. This time round they have 16 at the same stage.
  At the Liberty Stadium, Aguero marked his return to action with two well-taken goals for Pep Guardiola’s league leaders after serving a three-game ban for throwing an elbow in last month’s victory over West Ham.
 The Argentinian striker opened the scoring in the ninth minute and he made it 2-0 25 minutes from time before Raheem Sterling beat Lukasz Fabianski in the 77th minute as City beat Swansea for the second time in a week after their EFL Cup success.
 A swift move on the right, a clever turn from Aguero and the visitors were a goal to the good. Swansea came close to levelling matters in the 12th minute when Kyle Naughton, playing out of position at left back, found himself one on one with Claudio Bravo, the City goalkeeper. Bravo pulled off a decent save before City cleared. However, a minute later and the Swans were level.
 Gylfi Sigurdsson poked a ball through to Fernando Llorente, who having been played onside by John Stones, beat Bravo with a stunning volley from 16 yards. With the ball at their feet, Swansea showed decent quality. They were confident in moving through the gears and lacked only one aspect — the final delivery.
 South Korea’s Son Heung-Min scored twice as Tottenham Hotspur, without injured England star Harry Kane, won 2-1 away to Middlesbrough. Son opened the scoring in the seventh minute and doubled the London club’s advantage in the 23rd minute with a right-foot shot. Boro replied through Ben Gibson’s 65th-minute goal.
 Bournemouth ended Everton’s unbeaten start to the season with a 1-0 home win secured by Junior Stanislas’s shot into the top corner.  At the Stadium of Light, Crystal Palace came from 2-0 down to beat Sunderland 3-2 and so deny the hosts a first league win of the campaign.
 Jermain Defoe seized on a mistake by Joe Ledley as he fired Sunderland into a 39th-minute lead before doubling their lead on the hour mark only for Ledley to atone for his earlier error a minute earlier. James McArthur headed in an equaliser before Christian Benteke’s stoppage-time goal completed the south London club’s comeback.