Five played, five won, and one goal at Old Trafford
Top of the Premier League with five played, five won, fifteen points from fifteen, thirteen scored and five conceded. That is the table's line on Manchester City so far, and not one letter of it has wobbled. The run, told plainly: 2-1 at home to AFC Bournemouth on 23 August; 4-1 away at Crystal Palace on the twenty-eighth; 1-0 at home to Coventry City on 5 September; 1-0 away to Manchester United at Old Trafford on the thirteenth; 5-3 at home to Sunderland at the Etihad Stadium on the twentieth. A tight win to open, a four-one on the road, a one-nil at home, a derby decided by a single goal, and then the afternoon the goals came back in bulk. The first three league wins were 2-1, 4-1 and 1-0 — three different kinds of afternoon. And note where the two away wins happened: at Palace and at Old Trafford. Both went the same way. Two of those five league wins are 1-0s, which is the sort of scoreline that never gets the attention it earns at any club. Coventry at home was one goal and no panic. Old Trafford was one goal and a great deal of everything else. Both are in the bank at full value. The derby on 13 September is the fixture the file will circle. City at Old Trafford, 1-0, the only goal of the game — and look at the derby ledger these records hold and you can see how much ground one goal covers. December 2024: 2-1 to United at the Etihad. April 2025: 0-0 at Old Trafford. September 2025: 3-0 to City at the Etihad. January 2026: 2-0 to United at Old Trafford. And now this. The previous trip to that ground ended 2-0 to the home side; this one went home with the visitors. Two of the five derbies in these rows were settled by a single goal and one finished goalless: this fixture rarely produces margin. Then the week when the goals arrived all at once. Norwich City at the Etihad on 17 September in the Carabao Cup, 5-0. Sunderland at the same ground on the twentieth in the league, 5-3. Ten goals in four days at one address, five in each game, and ten of the eighteen goals in these rows landed in those two evenings. The Sunderland game also carries the only blemish in these rows: three conceded, after the five matches before it in which the total had been two. The five that went in at the other end were more than enough, but it is the one scoreline in this season's file that reads as chaos rather than control. For the last defeat in these records you have to go back to the final recorded league game of last season: 1-2 at home to Aston Villa on 24 May. Everything in these rows since — Bournemouth, Palace, Coventry, United, Norwich, Sunderland — has been a win, and four of those six were played at home. What the table says, plainly: five played, five won, none drawn, none lost. Thirteen scored, five against. Fifteen points from fifteen. First. What comes next is not in these data — no fixture list, no word on the next round of the cup that already held one five-nil. The competitions named for this club are the Premier League, the Champions League and the Carabao Cup. For now the rows are a straight line: six matches, six wins, and the only real argument left is which of the two kinds of win — the one-goal or the five-goal — is the one to trust. By the numbers — Premier League: 1st · 5 played · 5-0-0 · 13-5 · 15 pts · form WWWWW (oldest first). All data from ScoreCrowd's match records, retrieved 24 September 2026.