2026/2027 season

Premier League

Team page
Premier League · Team page
Manchester City
Head coach: Enzo Maresca · 4-3-3
Rank
1st
Pts
21
P
7
Form
🔥 Excellent

The essentials at a glance

The summary of this page: estimated level of play, form trend and qualitative verdict. For the details, head to the other tabs.

Editors' ratings
10/10
Attack
9/10
Defence
10/10
Form
9/10
Confidence / mood
Current risk:Low

1st with 21 pts from 7 matches: 7 wins, 0 draws, 0 defeats.

19 goals scored, 7 conceded.

All the latest news on Manchester City's 114 charges case, including potential points deductions and reaction from their Premier League rivals

Mirror Football · 18 Oct 2026

Fernando Roig, president of the Villarreal, has granted an extensive interview in 'The Guardian' in which he talks about the past, present and future of the club and in which he also praises a football player who went through his ranks and who today is in the Barça after having won in the Atletico de Madrid and, above all, in Manchester City: Rodrigo Hernández, Rodri.

Mundo Deportivo · 18 Oct 2026 · machine-translated

After this European week and the festival against Manchester City, what will this match look like for the Parisians?

RMC Sport · 18 Oct 2026 · machine-translated

Gary Caldwell, club captain in 2013 and now manager, needs much more than Saturday’s win over Reading to disperse the clouds If the 2013 FA Cup final represented a blip for the Sheikh Mansour-era Manchester City in their quest for total domination of English football, it was a historic moment for their conquerors, Wigan Athletic.

The Guardian — Football · 18 Oct 2026

How the team has played recently

Match-by-match results, record and rhythm of the current season.

Latest matches
Wvs Ipswich Town FC (H) · 3-2
Wvs Liverpool FC (A) · 3-0
Wvs Sunderland AFC (H) · 5-3
Wvs Manchester United FC (A) · 1-0
Wvs Coventry City FC (H) · 1-0
WWWWWWW
19 scored / 7 conceded over 7 matches played
Rest: 1 day since the last match · 2 matches played in the last 15 days
Home form
4W - 0D - 0L
Away form
3W - 0D - 0L
Statistics

Computed from this season's scores, every time the page is shown.

Goals scored per match
2.6
Goals conceded per match
1.0
At home
9 scored · 5 conceded in 3 matches
Away
4 scored · 0 conceded in 2 matches
Over 2.5 goals
3 of 5
Both teams score
2 of 5
Clean sheets
3 of 5
Failed to score
0 of 5
Cumulative points vs league average

Not enough matchdays recorded yet for this curve — history builds up with every standings refresh.

How Manchester City play

System, playing identity, and what sets the team apart at both ends of the pitch.

Playing identity
Preferred system
4-3-3
Philosophy
Enzo Maresca, appointed on 29/06/2026 to succeed Pep Guardiola, favours a highly structured set-up: Jamie Redknapp noted on Sky Sports that the Italian coach 'likes structure', to the point of questioning how much freedom Rayan Cherki is given.
Attacking strengths
6 goals in 2 matchdays (2-1 against Bournemouth on 23/08, 4-1 at Crystal Palace on 28/08), the league's best attack at this stage; Haaland scored a brace and Cherki a brace at Selhurst Park, where City reached the 2,000-goal mark in the Premier League.
Defensive solidity
2 goals conceded in 2 matchdays and no clean sheet in the league, with a Rúben Dias - Marc Guéhi centre-back pairing and Gianluigi Donnarumma in goal. The only competitive defeat is the 0-3 conceded to Arsenal in the Community Shield on 16/08.
Pressing
Unverified for 2026-27: none of the sources consulted provide a numerical pressing indicator for Maresca's Manchester City over these first two matchdays.
Transitions
Unverified for 2026-27. The sources consulted merely describe a highly structured team, with no transition data.
StrengthSix points out of six and six goals scored, an Erling Haaland still decisive, the emergence of Rayan Cherki, described by Jamie Redknapp as 'a genius who has just painted a masterpiece', and heavy investment in midfield (Ayyoub Bouaddi and Elliot Anderson).
WeaknessA midfield entirely rebuilt after the departures of Rodri (Barcelona), Nico González (Newcastle), Tijjani Reijnders (Al Qadsiah) and Bernardo Silva (Real Madrid, free); wings depleted after the sales of Savinho and Omar Marmoush to Tottenham, with Jérémy Doku injured.

The mood around the club, and who is missing

Internal climate, relationship with the supporters, and known absences before the next match.

Mood
Squad confidence
Very high, and now backed by markers of performance, not just results. Two wins from two matchdays, the league's best attack and above all the new head coach's hallmark: City are the most prolific side in the league for completed passes (1,315) at 90.9% accuracy, a sign that the possession model Enzo Maresca wants has been absorbed very quickly. The visit of Coventry should confirm it, City having won 27 of their 30 matches against promoted sides since 2021 and Erling Haaland having 19 goals in 20 games against that kind of opponent. Only one statistic invites caution: Coventry have never lost to City in the top flight, with four wins and four draws in their last eight meetings since 1992-93.
Coach / players / board relationship
Complete alignment between the head coach and his board, embodied by an unprecedented summer. The £458m spent is an outright Premier League record, beyond Liverpool's £415m, and the club still generated £304m in sales, which reflects deliberate management rather than a headlong rush. Sky Sports rate the window 8 out of 10 and their correspondent Ben Ransom judges the squad “in better shape today than it was at the start of last season”. No tension between Enzo Maresca and the board is reported by the sources consulted.
Mood with the supporters
The mood is not precisely documented by the sources consulted: succeeding a manager who stayed ten years, a setback in the Community Shield, but two opening league wins.
Pressure on the head coach
Low in the short term (two wins from two), but structurally high given that he is succeeding Pep Guardiola and the scale of the squad overhaul.
Club objectives
No officially stated numerical objective from the club could be verified in the sources consulted. The context is one of rebuilding: runners-up to Arsenal in 2025-26 (78 points), City are in the Champions League against PSG, Barcelona, Sporting CP, Porto, Napoli, RB Leipzig, AEK Athens and Lens, and have invested heavily in midfield (Bouaddi, Elliot Anderson).
Recent internal tensions
No internal tension reported at this stage; the open matters at the end of the window concern departures and arrivals (Jack Grealish courted by Everton, interest in Cody Gakpo and Enzo Fernández).
Absences
SuspendedMateo Kovačić — Suspended for two matches after a straight red card.
InjuredJérémy Doku — Calf injury, with his return expected right at the start of September.
DoubtfulMatheus Nunes — Absent on the last matchday, with his return expected in early September.

Before kick-off

What to know before the next match: statistical form, qualitative analysis, and a computed estimate of the 1/X/2 probabilities.

Next match

Aston Villa — Manchester City

AwaySaturday 24 October at 13:30Matchday 8
In 5 days. Kick-off time confirmed by the league. Paris time · football-data.org fixtures.

Prediction, odds and form of both teams →

What the press says

No preview found for this fixture. The press mostly covers the big games, and usually the day before.

Prediction
EstimateAston Villa — Manchester City
13 %
1 · Aston Villa
19 %
X · draw
68 %
2 · Manchester City
In-house calculation, from this page's standings data alone: 7 matches played by Aston Villa, 7 matches by Manchester City. Confidence: medium
The formula, in plain words — with this match's figures
  1. League average. 189 goals scored over 130 team-matches played (20 teams taken into account), i.e. μ = 1.45 goal scored per team per match. This is the reference point: everything that follows is expressed relative to it.
  2. Attacking and defensive strengths. Goals scored (or conceded) per match, divided by μ. 1.00 = exactly average; in defence, above 1.00 means “concedes more than average”.
    TeamGoalsRawKept
    Aston Villa — attack7 in 7 matches0.690.83
    Aston Villa — defence11 in 7 matches1.081.04
    Manchester City — attack19 in 7 matches1.871.47
    Manchester City — defence7 in 7 matches0.690.83
    The “Kept” column is the result of shrinkage towards the mean: weight = P / (P + 6), i.e. 0.54 for Aston Villa and 0.54 for Manchester City. The rest of the weight goes to the league average. This is what stops a lone 5-0 from producing an attack at 3.3 times the average — and hence a 95% probability.
  3. Home advantage (γ). Measured on the league itself: 1.42 goal scored on average by the host against 1.42 by the visitor, over the 52 fixtures present in each team's last 5 matches. Raw ratio 1.00; shrunk towards 1 (weight 0.44, on the log of the ratio) then capped at 1.25 → γ = 1.00. Shrinkage goes towards 1, i.e. no advantage at all: while the sample is small, the model does not assert a home advantage it cannot measure.
  4. Venue correction, specific to each team. Drawn from the home/away split: points per match at the venue concerned are compared to points per match over all fixtures, with stronger shrinkage (weight = P / (P + 8)) and a bound of ±12%.
    Aston Villa at home: 0.33 pts/match versus 1.14 overall over 3 matches → ×0.880
    Manchester City away: 3.00 pts/match versus 3.00 overall over 3 matches → ×1.000
  5. Expected goals. One side's attack is set against the other's defence. γ applies to the host only: applying it the other way round too would count the home advantage twice.
    λAston Villa = 1.45 × 0.83 × 0.83 × 1.00 × 0.880 = 0.89
    λManchester City = 1.45 × 1.47 × 1.04 × 1.000 = 2.23
  6. Poisson grid. Probability of every exact score from 0-0 to 8-8, assuming the two goal totals are independent, then adding up the cells: home win 13.6%, draw 18.7%, away win 67.7% — displayed rounded to whole numbers so that they add up to exactly 100. Most likely exact score in the grid: 0-2 (only 11.0%, which says enough about how unpredictable an exact score is).
Limits of this model — they are not anecdotal.
  • It only knows goals and a venue. Neither absences, suspensions, line-ups, fatigue, stakes, weather nor club context enter the calculation — while the other tabs of this page show that they matter.
  • The assumption that the two goal totals are independent is false in reality: it slightly underestimates tight scores, hence the draw.
  • γ is measured over a rolling window (each team's last 5 matches), not over the whole season.
  • The shrinkage constants (6, 60, 8) and the bounds are choices, not measurements. They were tuned to be cautious early in the season; they were not calibrated on a results history, as none is available here.
  • No after-the-fact evaluation has been made: at this stage, nobody knows whether this model is better or worse calibrated than another.
What other sources say
No external source has been collected for this match. That is the normal state: readings are taken by hand, and an empty box is better than an unverified figure.
This block shows probability estimates, not predictions, and carries no advisory value. The in-house estimate is the result of a formula applied to a small sample; the figures from external sources are reproduced as they were collected, without their method having been verified.

The full squad

The professional squad by position, captain marked with an armband.

Goalkeepers
  • Gianluigi Donnarumma
  • Marcus Bettinelli
  • Gerónimo Rulli
Defenders
  • Rúben DiasC
  • Marc Guéhi
  • Joško Gvardiol
  • Abduqodir Khusanov
  • Rayan Aït-Nouri
  • Vitor Reis
  • Matheus Nunes
  • Nico O'Reilly
  • Rico Lewis
  • Josh Wilson-Esbrand
  • Juma Bah
  • Kaden Braithwaite
  • Kian Noble
Midfielders
  • Elliot Anderson
  • Mateo Kovačić
  • Rayan Cherki
  • Claudio Echeverri
  • Ayyoub Bouaddi
  • Phil Foden
Forwards
  • Erling Haaland
  • Jérémy Doku
  • Jack Grealish
  • Antoine Semenyo
  • Jeremy Monga
  • Ryan McAidoo
This team's current captain could not be confirmed with certainty at the last check — no armband is shown above until the information is reliable.
Squad last verified on 31 Aug 2026 — source: worldfootball.net, Manchester City 2026/27 squad page (https://www.worldfootball.net/teams/te1267/manchester-city/squad/), cross-checked against the Sky Sports team sheets for Manchester City - Bournemouth (23/08) and Crystal Palace - Manchester City (28/08). The captaincy rests solely on the armband worn by Rúben Dias in those two matches, no official confirmation from the club having been found..

What has been said recently

Chronological feed of verified information about the club.

rss18 Oct 2026
Man City charges LIVE: Points deduction timeframe as appeal 'decision date' predicted
Source: Mirror Football
rss17 Oct 2026
Business as usual for victorious Man City despite lingering state of limbo
Source: The Independent — Football
rss17 Oct 2026
Boos and bananas on day of defiance at Man City
Source: BBC Sport
rss17 Oct 2026
Man City's Maresca 'very happy' after Ipswich win
Source: BBC Sport
rss17 Oct 2026
Erling Haaland injury update after Man City striker sparks major concern
Source: The Independent — Football
rss17 Oct 2026
Premier League trio including Man City star refuse to take knee as initiative returns
Source: Mirror Football
Club3 Sep 2026
Manchester City host promoted Coventry on Saturday 5 September at 15:00 at the Etihad, top of the league with six points and the highest goals-scored tally.
Source: Football Web Pages
Other3 Sep 2026
Enzo Maresca's City are already imposing themselves through the ball: the team is the league's most prolific in completed passes (1,315) at 90.9% accuracy. They also have 27 wins in 30 matches against promoted sides since 2021, Erling Haaland having scored 19 goals in 20 games against such opponents. Coventry, for their part, are unbeaten in their last eight top-flight meetings with City, with four wins and four draws since 1992-93.
Source: Sports Mole
Other3 Sep 2026
Rayan Cherki is nominated for the Premier League player of the month award for August after two assists off the bench against Bournemouth (2-1) and then a second-half brace at Crystal Palace (4-1). He is up against Riccardo Calafiori, Bruno Fernandes, Cole Palmer, João Félix, Mamadou Sangaré, Konstantinos Tzolakis and Yoane Wissa; voting closes on 11 September.
Source: Manchester City (site officiel)
European competition3 Sep 2026
The Champions League league phase starts for City on 8 September at Porto, before they host Paris Saint-Germain on 14 October and AEK Athens on 20 October, travel to Leipzig on 4 November, host Napoli on 24 November, go to Barcelona on 8 December and then to Lens on 20 January, and finish against Sporting CP on 27 January.
Source: UEFA
Club3 Sep 2026
The club has published the list of its eleven academy players out on loan for 2026-27: Divin Mubama at Southampton, Divine Mukasa at West Ham, Emilio Lawrence at Luton, Christian McFarlane at Leicester, Jaden Heskey at Sheffield Wednesday, Lakyle Samuel at Exeter, Oliver Whatmuff at Stockport, Isaiah Dada-Mascoll at Lommel, goalkeepers Spike Brits at Sutton United and Jack Wint at Kidderminster, and Stephen Mfuni at Coventry, Saturday's opponents.
Source: Manchester City (site officiel)
Institutional2 Sep 2026
Manchester City set a Premier League record with £458m spent this summer, erasing Liverpool's £415m, while recouping £304m in sales. The league broke its own record with £3.46bn invested, £475m of it on deadline day alone. Two of the five most expensive transfers in the league's history are City's: Enzo Fernández (£125m) and Elliot Anderson (£116m).
Source: Sports Mole
Institutional2 Sep 2026
Sky Sports rate City's window 8 out of 10. Ben Ransom believes that after the deadline-day moves, Enzo Fernández chief among them, the squad “is in better shape today than it was at the start of last season”.
Source: Sky Sports
Transfers1 Sep 2026
The club signed Enzo Fernández from Chelsea for £125m before bonuses, a fee that equals the Premier League transfer record, the Argentine becoming the only player in history to have been the subject of two transfers above £100m.
Source: Sports Illustrated
Transfers1 Sep 2026
Manchester City also brought in Iliman Ndiaye for £65m from Everton on deadline day, completing a summer of unprecedented spending.
Source: Sky Sports
Transfers1 Sep 2026
Jack Grealish has been loaned to Everton for a season, a departure that effectively ends his Manchester career a year before his contract expires.
Source: IBTimes UK
News last verified on 18 Oct 2026. Sources: sports press (L'Équipe, Le Parisien, Foot Mercato, regional press…) and official club websites — see the link on each item.
Editorial content (playing style, mood, absences, external prediction sources) last verified on 3 Sep 2026. The standings/form data above are refreshed automatically — as is the 1/X/2 estimate, recomputed on every view.