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A fine Sergio Aguero strike and a memorable goal from Mario Balotelli helped Manchester City to a 5-1 win over a poor Norwich City at Eastlands, as the hosts remained unbeaten in 14 Premier League matches this season.

In a match the big-spending Blues dominated, a great piece of skill from Aguero opened the scoring on 32 minutes, with Samir Nasri adding a second after a goalkeeping error by John Ruddy and Yaya Toure making it 3-0 with a smart low finish.

The Canaries pulled one back late on as Steve Morison headed in a fine cross from David Fox, but they were no threat to City who added two more through Balotelli - who brought a new dimension to the term ‘tap-in’ - and fellow substitute Adam Johnson.

The result puts the title favourites eight points clear of city rivals Manchester United, who can close the gap with a result against Aston Villa later.

Despite the thrashing, promoted Norwich stay in mid-table and seven points clear of the drop zone.

Unusually for a Premier League game, where the lesser lights usually put up some kind of challenge to the big-spending title challengers, this match had a heavy whiff of a Barcelona match in La Liga.

The hosts utterly dominated possession with a patient, short-passing game, while Norwich got men behind the ball and occasionally tried to go for the break.

Early on the tactic almost paid off as, after a David Silva shot was blocked, a long ball sent Morison clean through - a terrible touch on the edge of the box took the ball away from the Wales striker and Joe Hart rushed out to deny him.

That was pretty much it for Norwich as Roberto Mancini’s side pounded the visitors, who were barely able to pass halfway for the rest of the opening 45 minutes.

Edin Dzeko saw a low shot deflected wide while Aguero fired over from 12 yards as City tried to pass their way around a nine-man defence.

Norwich were actually doing quite well at frustrating the hosts, who refused to change their gameplan.

It needed a moment of brilliance to break the deadlock and one came on 32 minutes when a trademark bounding run from the rampaging Micah Richards saw the right-back cut the ball inside to Aguero.

He was only eight or nine yards out but the Argentine had his back to goal and a sea of defenders to negotiate, which he did with a superb drag-back and shimmy before flicking a low finish through the bodies and past Ruddy into the bottom left corner.

As expected Norwich attempted a more adventurous game which - the winning of a late corner aside - merely served Manchester City, who were able to find more space as Aguero and Dzeko both fired over from good positions.

Given the circumstances Paul Lambert would have been reasonably positive going into the break and his side came out with renewed confidence at the start of the second half.

After a good spell of possession, Elliott Bennett raced on to a Morison flick-on but was forced wide by Hart as he attempted to round the England goalkeeper, smacking the finish well off target from a tight angle.

City responded with a counter of their own, Nasri’s dipping cross just evading the close-range lunge of Dzeko when any touch would surely have put the ball in.

And Norwich’s brief renaissance was soon ended when what was a poor free-kick from Nasri on the left missed all his team-mates and slipped through the hands of Ruddy to make it 2-0 on 52 minutes.

Ruddy partly atoned for his blunder with a fine double save from Silva and Aguero - the latter from close range - but he was beaten again on 68 minutes when Toure drove a low finish into the bottom right after Nasri and Silva combined on the left side of the penalty area.

Just to remind everyone of Manchester City’s prowess, Aguero made way for Italy striker Balotelli - who returned to the bench following suspension - but it was Norwich who got the next goal.

It came from a superb first-time cross by Marc Tierney, with Morison able to evade his markers to power a header beyond Hart with 10 minutes left.

While clearly no more than a consolation it did spark what had been a fading Norwich side, with Andrew Surman going close with a low drive not long afterwards.

All that did was provoke the home side into further action, with two late goals giving the score-line the sheen it deserved.

First came Balotelli, who had been benched after returning from suspension. While technically only a tap into an empty net from the goal-line, it will go down as one of the goals of the season purely on account of the execution.

With two minutes remaining, Johnson did very well to weave in from the left and slip a low cross towards the six-yard box: the Italian saw his close-range finish kept out by Ruddy but, as the ball spun up in the air, he ambled towards the goal-line and - like a 1980s body-popper - nonchalantly flicked the ball into the empty net with the top of his shoulder, expressionless as he strode away without celebrating.

Johnson added a fifth in injury time, passing the ball into the net from the edge of the box, as City continued to annihilate opponents in what looks like a romp to the title.