Own Correspondent|Aston Villa slipped back into the Premier League relegation places with a big loss on Sunday.

After two wins from three in the top flight, villa were brushed aside by Manchester City losing 6-1 at Villa Park.

Coupled with Watford’s 3-0 victory over fellow relegation candidates Bournemouth earlier in the day, it means they are still firmly entrenched in relegation trouble.

Smith handed a debut to on-loan Chelsea midfielder Danny Drinkwater, one of three changes from the Carabao Cup semi-final first leg draw with Leicester City.

Conor Hourihane and Ahmed Elmohamady were the other two to come in, while Frederic Guilbert, Marvelous Nakamba and Trezeguet dropped out.

City, as expected, bossed the ball early on and penned Villa back into their own half. They opened the scoring after 18 minutes.

Sergio Aguero played square, Kevin De Bruyne’s lovely dummy allowed the ball to reach Riyad Mahrez. Mahrez took the ball on, waltzed into the box past weak challenges from Drinkwater and Kortney Hause, and fired in at the near post.

The second arrived six minutes later and it was more poor defending from the hosts. Drinkwater was robbed of the ball in his own box by David Silva, following good work from Aguero, and the ball fell to Mahrez, who slammed home from ten yards

A devastating 10-minute period was completed by Aguero. De Bruyne was the architect as he fed his team mate, about 20 yards out, to rifle one past Orjan Nyland for 3-0. The shot did have power, but Nyland got hands to it and couldn’t quite keep it out.

fourth could have arrived before the 45th-minute, but it was 4-0 on the stroke of half-time when De Bruyne charged into the vacant space down Villa’s left, sent in an excellent low cross and Gabriel Jesus was on hand to fire home.

The fifth arrived 12 minutes after the restart, David Silva the provider this time to Aguero, who skipped past Elmohamady, Tyrone Mings backed off, and Aguero curled into the bottom corner from about 12 yards.

The visitors could have had more – notably when Mings cleared one off the line and Jesus twice came close – and a sixth did arrive nine minutes from time.

It was the matchball for Aguero as Hause gave the ball inexplicably to Mahrez, who played in Aguero and he finished with aplomb to seal an emphatic win that moved them back to second in the table.

El Ghazi did score a penalty with the last kick of the game but it meant little in the grand scheme of things.