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Enzo Maresca impressed as Man City widen gap over Arsenal
21st September, 2026 06:50 AM
Manchester City boss Enzo Maresca has maintained that it is still early days after his side moved three points clear at the top of the Premier League table.
After Arsenal’s defeat to Brighton on Saturday, September 19, 2026, City are the only team to win all five of their opening games.
The Blues defeated Sunderland 5-3 at home ahead of the international break with a record-breaking feat for Erling Haaland, whose 82nd-minute goal put the former champions on course for the victory.
“No, I think again, it’s much better to win games,” said Maresca on his side’s position in the table. “At this moment it is better to have three points more than less, no doubt. I prefer to win 1-0 than 5-3, but I am happy that we won again for sure.”
“But at the same time we know that it’s quite early.”
Good thing
The Italian also highlighted City’s capacity to deal with different challenges in their performance, as the positive aspect of the seven games in which they had remained unbeaten across three competitions.
“The good thing for me is that these seven games that we played, they have all been different.
He also lauded the resilience of his team, making reference to their Match Week 4 Manchester Derby victory against Manchester United with ten men.
“We experienced ten players against United, we experienced that we were losing against Bournemouth, and we experienced different things. We won the games, but also we can learn from that,” he added
With the victory at Sunderland. Maresca marched a record set by Pep Guardiola of winning the first five league matches on the trot.
Guardiola, who departed the team last season after a decade-long career, set the record with a winning start at the start of his career the following season.
Overall, he becomes just the sixth Premier League manager to win all of his first five games in charge, joining the company of Craig Shakespeare, Ole Gunnar Solskjær, Carlo Ancelotti, Guardiola and Mauricio Sarri.
