Four straight wins, 15 goals, another hat-trick and a Champions League debut around the corner, Manchester City seem to be short of nothing except a new chief executive, and Garry Cook's shoes will surely be filled quickly as the job description must rank as one of the most attractive in the country.

Perhaps the only other thing City lack is a happy, smiling Carlos Tevez, for the deposed captain failed feebly with a first-half penalty here, and his second-half departure was the signal for City to finally cut loose and score the goals they had been threatening against a Wigan side clinging on more by good luck than sound organisation.

City left Edin Dzeko on the bench, a fine reward for his four-goal haul at Spurs in his last league game, though Roberto Mancini does have Napoli to think about on Wednesday. Tevez would not be thrilled to be left out of the Champions League lineup, though the possibility exists that Dzeko provides a more straightforward, less complicated focus for the attack. Whatever permutation Mancini comes up with, as long as they have David Silva to supply the mercurial Sergio Agüero, City will cause problems for most opponents. Agüero could hardly be denied the man-of-the-match award after scoring all three goals, though Silva's performance was arguably the game's most impressive.

"Carlos Tevez is not at 100% fitness at the moment," Mancini said, ominously. "He needed this game, it was important to play him and he did well, but he will need maybe two or three more games to get back to 100%. David Silva is a top player, but so is Sergio Agüero and Yaya Touré. For them it is easy to play football. We could have made this game easier for ourselves, I think we must have had 15 chances in the first half and scored one goal, but now we can look forward to Napoli. That will be another hard game, because the first game is always difficult."

Wigan do not possess the sort of defenders who could easily cope with Silva and Agüero's tricky control and imaginative passing, as was shown when Adrian López unapologetically barged the former over for the clearest of penalties mid-way through the first half. City were already a goal up at that point, Tevez, Silva and Agüero having combined for an early strike of elegant simplicity, and the way Wigan were playing the floodgates appeared likely to open at any moment. Yet in keeping with the careless manner in which the home side completed the first half, as if they were finding it so easy they could hardly be bothered to concentrate, Tevez stroked his penalty tamely towards Ali al-Habsi and one goal was all that separated the sides at the interval.

Silva had already had a shot saved and Vincent Kompany had seen a goal-bound header bizarrely diverted over the bar by Joleon Lescott before Agüero scored. Agüero was narrowly wide twice before half-time but City should have increased their lead when Micah Richards stayed onside to reach Tevez's perfectly weighted pass, only to flick a shot against the bar with the goal at his mercy. Kompany also hit the woodwork with a header from a corner and Yaya Touré rolled the rebound right across the face of goal. As all Wigan had to offer was a Franco Di Santo half chance that the striker poked wide, the visitors must have been mightily relieved to begin the second half still in the game.

Tevez and Agüero went close early in the second half but when Victor Moses and Hugo Rodallega combined neatly on the hour for the latter to force Joe Hart's first real save of the afternoon it was a reminder that the game was not yet won. Mancini responded by sending on Samir Nasri for Tevez, who while effective in parts had not really combined with Silva and Agüero as devastatingly as might have been hoped. Nasri underlined the point with his first contribution, delicately slipping the ball forward to leave Agüero a simple finish for the second goal.

That acted as a pressure release, and within minutes the superb Silva was wrongfooting almost the entire Wigan defence and sending Agüero through for City's second hat-trick in four matches.

"City have gone to a different level, they can be regarded as title contenders now," a glum Wigan manager Roberto Martínez reflected. "I think we could have been a little wiser, we were capable of causing City a bit more trouble than we did, but mentally we were defeated almost before the game began. We never believed we could get a result here, against all City's big names, and that is disappointing."

Martínez has a right to be disappointed, Wigan have not always been overwhelmed or overawed against City in recent seasons, but the way things are shaping up he is unlikely to be the only manager to come here and suffer the same sense of frustration.