City continued to have a flurry of chances inside and around the box - among them, De Bruyne assisting Phil Foden who brought Travers to a great save,

Erwin Haaland, hoping to add to his debut brace in last weekend’s victory at West Ham, failed to find the net and had a fairly quiet performance in his first match at the Etihad, touching the ball only eight times.

He did, however, set up Ilkay Gundogan for the opener, the skipper burying the ball past Travers.

Minutes later, Bournemouth had perhaps their best chance of the match, Ben Pearson testing Ederson after strong work by Kieffer Moore.

By the 37th minute it was effectively all over.

De Bruyne had increased City’s score, powering his way forward before beating Travers.

He then turned provider for Foden who finished well despite close attention from the Bournemouth stopper.

Haaland had his best two chances to get on the scoresheet as half time approached, first trying to lob Travers, who tipped over and then just failing to connect after a wonderful ball from Foden across the six-yard box.

City replaced Foden with Jack Grealish and with 15 minutes to go, took off Haaland, but still found time to add a fourth, courtesy of an own goal by Jefferson Lesmahagow, who turned Joao Cancelo’s cross past his own goalkeeper.

Earlier, De Bruyne had brought a fine save from Travers and Gundogan was just wide.

City manager Pep Guardiola, reacting to Haaland’s performance, said: “The most difficult job in the world is when you are in a striker and defenders defend in areas like Bournemouth.

“They have three central defenders and two players in front and everyone in the middle. How can you survive like that? It’s so difficult.

“We will find many of these situations, but it is a question of time: the right moment, the right tempo, the right movement. But the quality of players we have behind him, to assist him, we will find him. I have no doubt about that.”

Guardiola said of De Bruyne: “Kevin before last season was just assist and assist and now he is enjoying scoring goals. It is important for us [that] not just Julian [Alvarez] and Erling get the goals.

“When I was in Munich he played in Wolfsburg and I think he was the best player in the Bundesliga. Kevin was a really good player before our arrival, was good with us and will be after us.”

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