Premier League Results: Goalfest For Manchester Clubs as United and City Ease to Wins

Goals were the order of the day for Manchester sides as United and City cruised to victories in the English Premier League on Saturday.

Manchester United, slowly but surely finding their feet under David Moyes, struck three goals in the first half - via Antonio Valencia, Robin Van Persie and Wayne Rooney - to kill off Fulham, eventually winning 3-1, with Alex Kacaniklic getting the lone goal for the hosts at craven Cottage.

City absolutely thumped Norwich 7-0 at the Etihad as Manuel Pellegrini's men turned on the style in front of their home fans and bounced back in style from that monumental defeat against Chelsea last weekend.

Man City moved up to fourth with the win, on 19 points from 10 matches, just a point behind Chelsea who lost to Newcastle earlier, while United stay eighth, two points behind their crosstown rivals.

At Craven Cottage, Manchester United basically put the game to bed within the first 22 minutes. Antonio Valencia first opened the scoring for United off a nice move from the Premier League champions.

Robin Van Persie found Wayne Rooney behind the Fulham defence, with the England international then calmly squaring the ball to Valencia to tap in.

The two players that assisted in the opening goal then would score one each in the space of two minutes. Adnan Januzaj robbed Scott Parker off the ball, unfairly according to the Fulham midfielder; but the referee waved play on and Januzaj obliged by playing a through pass to Van Persie, who blasted the ball into the roof of the net on 20 minutes.

Two minutes later it was 3-0, with Van Persie finding space on the right before cutting the ball back to Rooney, who could not miss from three yards.

With the game pretty much done and dusted the level of play dropped off a bit, Fulham grabbing themselves a consolation in the 65^th minute, with Alex Kacaniklic's shot taking a wicked deflection off Rooney before creping in.

Darren Bent nearly added another consolation late in the game, with the substitute seeing his looping header just bounce off the top of the crossbar, as United looked a little nervous in the final moments, but did enough to take all three points.

Manchester City had a field day for themselves at the Etihad Stadium, firing in seven unanswered goals against a hapless Norwich side.

City got off the blocks in the 16^th minute courtesy a Bradley Johnson own goal, with the ball looping into the net off the Norwich man after some pinball inside the penalty box.

Four minutes later, David Silva got his name on the scoresheet, latching onto a pass from Sergio Aguero, who in turn had held the ball up nicely off a cross from Samir Nasri, before firing home.

Matija Nastasic then got his first City goal in the 25^th minute, nodding home from six yards off a corner from Nasri.

City were just playing some sumptuous football, and there was little Norwich could do to stop them with the fourth coming in the 36^th minute courtesy Alvaro Negredo, who hammered home after some good work from Yaya Toure and Aguero.

Toure, with a wonderful freekick from 20 yards on the hour mark, Aguero, firing home from ten yards, and Edin Dzeko, late on, then added the icing on the cake as City romped home.

In other games, high-flying Southampton came back from a goal down to draw Stoke 1-1, after a bizarre goal from Potters goalkeeper Asmir Begovic gave Mark Hughes' side the lead in just 14 seconds.

Jay Rodriguez, though, struck the equaliser for Saints just before halftime with Mauricio Pochettino's men now level on points with Manchester City and Tottenham.

Results: Hull 1-0 Sunderland; Fulham 1-3 Manchester United; West Ham 0-0 Aston Villa; West Brom 2-0 Crystal Palace; Hull 1-0 Sunderland; Manchester City 7-0 Norwich; Newcastle 2-0 Chelsea.