Manchester City’s hard-fought 3-2 victory over Ipswich was far more than just three points in the Premier League, as the match featured a historic achievement for manager Enzo Maresca and another extraordinary goalscoring milestone for Erling Haaland.
City endured a tougher test than expected against their visitors, but maintained their perfect start to the campaign, relying on a brace from Haaland to settle the tie and keep Maresca’s side alone at the top with a 100% record.
Phil Foden opened the scoring in the 19th minute, but Daizen Maeda leveled for Ipswich just two minutes later, before Haaland restored the hosts’ lead in the 34th minute and added his second in the 69th minute. Zian Flemming pulled one back for the visitors from the penalty spot in the 90th minute.
With this win, Maresca became the first manager in Premier League history to win his first seven matches with a single club, having kicked off his tenure at Manchester City with victories over Bournemouth, Crystal Palace, Coventry, Manchester United, Sunderland, Liverpool, and Ipswich.
Maresca had equaled the previous record following a 3-0 victory over Liverpool at Anfield, where Pep Guardiola with Manchester City, Carlo Ancelotti with Chelsea, and Ole Gunnar Solskjær with Manchester United had each achieved six consecutive wins at the start of their managerial stints, before the Italian coach broke the record outright in his seventh match.
As for Haaland, he continued his scoring streak for a sixth consecutive Premier League match, having found the net against Crystal Palace, Coventry, Manchester United, Sunderland, and Liverpool, before adding his brace against Ipswich to take his tally to 8 goals this season.
The Norwegian striker’s double carried an even more impressive statistic: he reached 100 non-penalty goals in the Premier League in just 139 appearances, becoming the fastest player in the competition’s history to reach a century of open-play goals.
Haaland raised his total overall haul to 120 Premier League goals. Notably, he had previously become the fastest player to reach 100 overall goals in the competition’s history (in 111 matches), as well as needing just 48 appearances to reach 50 goals and 77 matches to hit 75 goals.
Manchester City have gathered 21 points from their opening seven fixtures, scoring 19 goals and conceding seven, turning the start of the post-Guardiola era into a record-breaking launch under Maresca, while Haaland prepares to put his scoring streak to the test when City travel to face Aston Villa on October 24.
