Sergio Aguero inspired City to a comfortable win, scoring two goals and assisting two more as the Baggies struggled to cope at the Eithad Stadium.

The visitors managed to minimise City lead to just one goal by the break, and Hodgson admits it could have been a different story had they held out in the early stages of the restart.

However, Aguero scored his second on 54 minutes and the hosts never looked back, with Carlos Tevez and David Silva adding to the tally soon after.

"We were beaten by a far superior team, quite simply," Hodgson admitted to Sky Sports.

"After the early goal we fought well and kept ourselves in the game by good defensive work and hard work.

"But when they scored the two quick goals early in the second-half we were looking down the barrel of the gun.

'Saddening'

"They could then play with their tails up because they had a comfortable lead.

"In the end it's saddening to lose by so many goals, but the fact is there were no points out there for us today.

"I thought that if we could keep that going for another 10 or 15 minutes we could maybe start to get them more concerned and that the game could open up.

"Unfortunately, that never materialised because they got the second goal and third goal very early (in the second half)."

After conceding the second goal, the Baggies lost their discipline and composure somewhat, although there were no bookings in a cleanly fought game.

Hodgson, though, admits his side contributed to their own downfall in the end and deserved to take nothing from the game.

He added: "We shot ourselves in the foot a little with a couple of goals but we deserved to get nothing from the game, but the scoreline bothers me because we don't lose by that much very often."