Manchester City’s bid for a fourth successive Premier League title visited Craven Cottage on Saturday lunchtime, with Pep Guardiola’s team knowing that a win would take them above Arsenal in the table.

Fulham started brightly but could only hold out until the 13th minute when a 19-pass move was converted by Josko Gvardiol – yet another important goal via the Croatian’s weaker right foot.

It was a similar story in the second half: some early pressure from the home side… and then 13 minutes later it was 2-0, FWA Player of the Year Phil Foden scoring with his weaker foot this time. With 20 minutes to go, Gvardiol (with – yes – his right foot) made it 3-0 with a lunging finish at the far post, before a late penalty from Julian Alvarez reduced Arsenal’s once-mighty goal difference advantage to only two.

Sam Lee answers some of the key questions from the game:

How did Josko Gvardiol turn into a goal machine?

“There was a period that was so uncertain,” Guardiola said of Gvardiol last weekend. “It was not really, really good. Guardiola then explained how that is normal for a player new to a league – and we have seen this often at City. “But we talked, we saw many of his performances, and he got it right.”

For much of the season, there have been questions about Gvardiol’s suitability to a left-back role but it increasingly feels like he would be wasted at centre-back. No doubt in the future he will maraud forward through the middle as John Stones does – once he has picked up a few more intricacies of the Guardiola blueprint – but while he learns it, left-back is just fine.

He is asked to be high and wide but there are few overlaps and crosses – he is essentially one more midfielder, just one out wide, getting the ball and giving it, keeping things moving; a bit like how Jack Grealish has been used, minus the dribbles.

But the footwork from Gvardiol is not bad either, and that was on display for his first goal at Fulham. Once he arrived in the box, he showed composure to take one more little touch before getting his shot off. That kind of orientation on the pitch – and the ability to use his right foot – sets him apart from many players, particularly defenders.

He did have some problems at first; Guardiola has talked about how he always tried to be too creative in possession, giving the ball away, and defensively he was caught out too, but those problems have been minimised in the past few months and he has looked like the ideal option for Guardiola’s muscular-yet-technical backline.

Add in some goals, just as the two here or the screamers against Real Madrid and Luton Town, and you have a very special player – albeit one who turned down the chance to become the first defender in Premier League history to score a hat-trick after City were awarded an added-time penalty.

Is Kevin De Bruyne back to his best?

De Bruyne’s knack for picking up assists almost under the radar continued, playing his part in Gvardiol’s goal by completing the one-two with the rampaging full-back.

In a similar way that Erling Haaland has often scored a first-half hat-trick almost by stealth, De Bruyne keeps popping up with decisive contributions even when he is not splitting defences with through balls or bending crosses to the back post.

It is that ability to combine the more outrageous efforts with the simpler passes that have boosted him up the Premier League assist rankings in his nine years at City – and now only Ryan Giggs has more than him in league history, and from a considerably longer career (almost 27,000 extra minutes).

De Bruyne has also got the same amount of assists as Cesc Fabregas – but from 7,000 fewer minutes. De Bruyne has nine assists in the Premier League this season, as many as any other City player, and he has only played half of it.

In this game, he was a lot like Haaland again in the sense that he was there inside, shuffling about, waiting for the time to come to get on the ball and make a telling contribution, as the bulk of the in-possession work was done by those positioned deeper and wider.

He could have had even more assists as the game began to open up just before half-time – especially after Manuel Akanji missed a volley unmarked at the far post, while Haaland skewed a good chance over the bar. It was the third time De Bruyne had created three Opta-defined ‘big chances’ in a Premier League game this season, two more than any other player in the division. He was taken off with 15 minutes to go, knowing that he had done more than enough.

Did you see Kyle Walker carrying Bernardo Silva?

If the sight of the ball squirming over the line to give City an unassailable 3-0 lead was not enough, then the celebrations would have left no doubt that Guardiola’s side were cruising and looking far from bothered by the pressures of a title race.

It was Bernardo Silva who delivered the cross to the far post for Gvardiol to convert, weighing up and choosing the perfect option from De Bruyne’s short corner.

And Kyle Walker wanted to make sure Bernardo got the credit for it. As the City players congregated in front of the jubilant away support (including Noel Gallagher), Walker picked up the Portuguese in what was essentially a fireman’s carry, taking him a good 20 yards to the rest of them.

Bernardo is as beloved in the dressing room as anybody at City, but everybody is braced for another summer of will-he-won’t-he, given there is a buy-out clause in his contract, inserted last year after he agreed to stay, yet again, but with one eye on finally exiting being possible in 2024.

He has been eyeing one since 2021 – not that you would know it given how he has put all of that to the back of his mind once the season begins and continues to be one of the key cogs of the Guardiola machine.

It is getting towards the time for goodbyes and it could be emotional when the players go their separate ways for their holidays. Before that, they have two games to go, and if they win them all they will have claimed a Premier League and FA Cup double.

Business as usual for Bernardo and the band, then. And they look more than happy with that.

• The Athletic report