Manchester City, thrashed 4-1 at home by Liverpool last week, beat Southampton 3-1 at the Etihad Stadium on Saturday.
City took an early grip with a tap-in from Kevin de Bruyne and a shot from the edge of the box from Fabian Delph inside the opening 20 minutes before Shane Long headed in for Saints soon after halftime.
Aleksandar Kolarov added the third after 69 minutes as City moved on to 29 points from 14 matches.
Crystal Palace closed the gap on the leader when it thrashed struggling Newcastle United 5-1 at Selhurst Park.
Newcastle has 10 points, the same as Bournemouth which staged a dramatic comeback after trailing 2-0 to Everton then 3-2 with only seconds of stoppage time left before Junior Stanislas equalised with a header to make it 3-3.
The results:
Premier League: Aston Villa 2 (Richards 41, Ayew 89) lost to Watford 3 (Ighalo 17, Hutton 69-og, Deeney 85); Bournemouth 3 (Smith 80, Stanislas 87, 90+8) drew with Everton 3 (Funes Mori 25, Lukaku 36, Barkley 90+5).
Crystal Palace 5 (McArthur 14, 90, Bolasie 17, 47, Zaha 41) bt Newcastle 1 (Cisse 10); Manchester City 3 (de Bruyne 9, Delph 20, Kolarov 69) bt Southampton 1 (Long 49); Sunderland 2 (van Aanholt 82, Watmore 84) bt Stoke 0.
La Liga: On Saturday: Barcelona 4 (Neymar 22, 53, Suarez 41, Messi 90+1) bt Real Sociedad 0.
On Friday: Levante 0 lost to Real Betis 1 (Ruben Castro 4)
Bundesliga: On Saturday: Bayern Munich 2 (Muller 34, Coman 41) bt Hertha Berlin 0; Werder Bremen 1 (Ujah 62) lost to Hamburg 3 (Ilicevic 3, Gregoritsch 26, Muller 68); Hannover 96 4 (Marcelo 5, Andreasen 11, Karaman 24, Bech 85) bt Ingolstadt 0; Hoffenheim 3 (Zuber 11, Polanski 35, Amiri 47) drew with Borussia Monchengladbach 3 (Johnson 5, 87, Drmic 56); Mainz 05 2 (Muto 5, Mali 42) bt Eintracht Frankfurt 1 (Seferovic 61).
On Friday: SV Darmstadt 0 drew with Cologne 0.
