Haaland Hits 100 as City Make It Seven from Seven — a Record Built in Defiance

Foto: MichaelEmilio (CC BY 4.0), via Wikimedia Commons.

The inflatable bananas were out before kick-off. Thousands of them, bobbing above the Etihad stands like it was 1988 again. If you wanted a picture of where Manchester City are right now — record-breaking on the pitch, fighting for their Premier League life off it — you couldn't have framed it better.

Manchester City 3, Ipswich Town 2. Seven games, seven wins. For the first time in the club's history, City have won their opening seven league matches of a season. Only Chelsea in 2005-06 and Liverpool in 2019-20 had ever done it before them.

And at the centre of it, as always, was Erling Haaland.

How the record fell

Phil Foden opened the scoring in the 19th minute — his first goal of the season, a sharp turn and finish after Jeremy Doku's incisive run split the Ipswich defence. It lasted two minutes. Daizen Maeda got the better of Marc Guehi, sat Gianluigi Donnarumma down, and silenced the home crowd in the 21st.

City needed their Norwegian. In the 34th minute, Mateo Kovacic dinked a lovely cross into the box and Haaland met it with a precise, powerful header. 2-1 at the break.

His second, in the 69th, was pure Haaland: latching onto Iliman Ndiaye's stunning pass, outmuscling Abdoul Ouattara, and firing low into the corner. That made it six consecutive Premier League games with a goal, and took his season tally to 12.

He thought he had a hat-trick in the 85th minute, but Ndiaye was offside in the build-up and it was chalked off. Ipswich made it nervy — Zian Flemming tucked away a 90th-minute penalty after Guehi was penalised for kicking Abdul Fatawu, the spot-kick awarded after a VAR review. Twelve minutes of added time. City held on.

Maresca outdoes Guardiola

The win also made Enzo Maresca the first manager in Premier League history to win his first seven games in charge — beating the six-game mark Pep Guardiola set, which Maresca had equalled against Liverpool last weekend.

"He has settled in really well, the lads are buying into what he wants to do," Foden told BBC Match of the Day afterwards. "There's a lot of things to improve still and today is a good example of that, we can do a lot better."

City were far from flawless — Ipswich refused to read the script. But champions find ways.

The 100 that Ronaldo never reached

Here's the stat that stopped me cold. According to Opta, Haaland's brace took him to 100 non-penalty Premier League goals in just 139 appearances — the fastest any player has ever reached that mark in the competition's history.

For context: Cristiano Ronaldo scored 103 Premier League goals across two spells at Manchester United in 236 appearances. Twenty-four of those were penalties. That leaves the Portuguese with 79 non-penalty goals — 21 fewer than Haaland, in nearly a hundred more games. Let that sink in.

The defiance in the stands

This was City's first home league game since the club were found guilty of more than 100 breaches of the Premier League's financial rules in September. City are appealing — they branded the verdict a "Premier League conspiracy" — and face a possible points deduction or even expulsion if that appeal fails.

The supporters answered the only way they know how. They booed the Premier League anthem before kick-off. They waved the bananas — a throwback to the late 1980s, when the inflatable fruit lifted spirits during a grim spell in the lower divisions. The blow-up fruit has become, as one report put it, a symbol of defiance in the face of a potential massive points deduction.

There's something almost poetic about it. A club that could be thrown out of the league, playing football that belongs at the very top of it.

What it means

City sit six points clear of champions Arsenal — though the Gunners can close the gap at Nottingham Forest on Sunday.

Whatever the commission decides, no appeal can take Saturday away. Seven from seven.

Enjoy it while it lasts, City fans. The football, at least, is unimpeachable.

Sources

• The National — "Erling Haaland to the fore as Manchester City set Premier League record" (Oct. 17, 2026)
• beIN Sports — "Manchester City 3-2 Ipswich Town: Maresca makes history with seventh straight win" (Oct. 17, 2026)
• The Straits Times (AFP) — "Haaland brace extends Man City's winning start in Premier League" (Oct. 18, 2026)
• World Soccer Talk — "Erling Haaland sets Premier League record that even Cristiano Ronaldo could not match" (Oct. 17, 2026; Opta data)
• Pulse Sports — "Maresca eclipses Guardiola as Haaland brace extends lead over Arsenal" (Oct. 17, 2026)