Premier League 2026-27, Manchester City thrash Crystal Palace 4-1: Stats
What's the story
Manchester City continued their winning streak under new manager Enzo Maresca with a resounding 4-1 victory over Crystal Palace in Matchweek 2 of the Premier League 2026-27 season. The match, played at Selhurst Park, saw Rayan Cherki and Erling Haaland each score twice to secure City's second consecutive win of the season. The defeat marks Crystal Palace's second straight loss since Pierre Sage took charge as their new boss.
Match highlights
Haaland opens the scoring for City
The match started with a bang as Haaland scored the opening goal in the 17th minute. The Norwegian striker rose above Chris Richards to head in Antoine Semenyo's left-wing cross.
However, City missed two clear chances soon after, with Phil Foden missing a close-range shot and then getting his header wrong from an unmarked position.
Goal details
How did the 2nd half pan out?
Cherki doubled City's lead in the 54th minute.
He picked up Foden's pass inside the box and weaved past several Palace defenders before finishing delicately beyond Dean Henderson with his boot's outside.
Yeremy Pino brought Palace back into the game with a stunning free-kick that hit the woodwork and deflected off Gianluigi Donnarumma for an own goal.
However, Cherki quickly restored City's two-goal advantage with Josko Gvardiol making the assist.
Haaland then sealed the victory late in the match, scoring his second of the night after being set up by Foden.
Haaland
Haaland races to 114 Premier League goals
Haaland has raced to 114 Premier League goals from 134 matches. He also has 24 assists.
Making his 201st appearance for the club in all competitions, Haaland has scored 164 goals.
He owns two goals from three appearances this season.
As per Opta, only Andrew Cole (25 in 44 apps) has scored more Premier League goals in the month of August than Haaland (24 goals in 16 apps).
Cherki
Cherki joins Henry and Drogba with this feat
From 35 Premier League games, Cherki has raced to six goals. He also has 12 assists. He has two goals and 2 assists this season.
As per Opta, Cherki is the third player to have a game with multiple goals and another game with multiple assists across a team's first two matches of a Premier League campaign, after Thierry Henry in 2004-05 and Didier Drogba in 2010-11.
Information
Here are the match stats
City had nine shots on target from 18 attempts. Palace managed 9 attempts with 1 shot on target. In terms of touches in the opposition box, City dominated Palace 33-13. City also completed 721 passes and owned a possession of 72.4%.
Numbers
Key numbers for Foden and Haaland
Making his 227th Premier League appearance, Foden now owns 35 assists. He also has 68 goals under his belt.
As per Squawka, Haaland has scored more goals at Selhurst Park than any other away ground in the Premier League (7).
Haaland has now recorded 10+ goals against three teams in the Premier League: 11 vs West Ham United, 10 vs Wolves and 10 vs Crystal Palace.