MAN­CHES­TER, Eng­land – Ja­maican in­ter­na­tion­al Khadi­ja "Bun­ny" Shaw net­ted a hat-trick as Man­ches­ter City thumped West Ham Unit­ed 5-0 on Sun­day to re­turn to the top of the Women’s Su­per League (WSL) ta­ble.

The win car­ried City to 25 points, help­ing them to leapfrog Chelsea, whose ear­li­er vic­to­ry had tak­en them to 23 points.

Ao­ba Fu­ji­no scuffed two ear­ly chances to put City ahead at the Joie Sta­di­um, strik­ing the near post then fir­ing wide when choos­ing the far post at the sec­ond op­por­tu­ni­ty.

But Shaw gave her side the lead in the 38th minute when she showed com­po­sure to fin­ish past goal­keep­er Con­stance Pi­caud-In­con­nu fol­low­ing an at­trac­tive pass­ing move which be­gan with Lau­ren Hemp win­ning the ball high up the pitch.

City then put the con­test to bed in the sec­ond half with four more unan­swered goals.

Shaw head­ed in a Hemp cross for City’s sec­ond in the 53rd minute, with Pi­caud-In­con­nu get­ting a hand to the ball but on­ly punch­ing it in via the un­der­side of her cross­bar.

Sev­en min­utes lat­er, Fu­ji­no made it 3-0 af­ter steal­ing the ball back in­side her own half and go­ing alone be­fore find­ing the bot­tom cor­ner from the edge of the box.

Sub­sti­tute Iman Beney opened her league ac­count in the 68th minute when her ef­fort de­flect­ed in off West Ham mid­field­er Katie Zelem, be­fore Shaw, the most pro­lif­ic hat-trick scor­er in WSL his­to­ry, put the ic­ing on the cake in the 74th minute, be­fore be­ing sub­sti­tut­ed off with her side five goals up.

It was Shaw’s 12th goal in nine WSL match­es this sea­son, ahead of next week’s mouth­wa­ter­ing clash with Chelsea.

CMC