Full Time
Manchester City ran riot at Selhurst Park, beating Crystal Palace 4-1 thanks to braces from Erling Haaland and Rayan Cherki, the latter arriving in a five-minute spell after half-time that finished the game as a contest. Palace's goal came via a City own goal, which about sums up how the afternoon went for the hosts. Haaland now has four goals in City's first two league games and Cherki three, which is not a bad account for either of them two games into a title defence. That's back-to-back wins to open the season for City, eight goals scored and only two conceded. Palace, meanwhile, have a solitary point from two games and are still waiting on their first win.
Pre-match Talking Points
Match talking points will appear here before kick-off.
Team Talking Points
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1Crystal Palace said goodbye to Oliver Glasner this summer, the manager who delivered the best run in the club's history — an FA Cup win, then a Conference League title in his very last game in charge. An almost impossible act to follow.
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2In stepped Pierre Sage from French side Lens, who'd just been named Ligue 1's Manager of the Season. It's been a bumpy start, though — Palace lost his first two games in charge, at Everton and at home to Manchester City.
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3The bigger worry is defensive: Palace have now conceded two or more goals in nine straight league games, an unwanted club record. Bring that up carefully — Palace fans know it already, and they're hoping it's a blip rather than a trend.
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4There are signs of it settling down — a first clean sheet of the season came against Middlesbrough, and Palace went into their next game against Ipswich chasing back-to-back league wins for the first time since December. Small steps, but steps.
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5Palace also sold centre-back Maxence Lacroix to Chelsea for around £52m and used some of that money to bring in Wolves striker Jørgen Strand Larsen. A reminder that Palace's transfer business has got a lot more serious since those two trophies.
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Top thing to say down the pub
Palace won two trophies in six months under Glasner and still can't stop conceding — football doesn't owe anyone a tidy story.
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Avoid saying
"Palace are just plucky underdogs who play for pride" — they've won two actual trophies recently, so that one's embarrassingly out of date now.
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1This is the first Manchester City season since 2015-16 without Pep Guardiola in the dugout. He stepped down in the summer after a decade that redefined the club, and Enzo Maresca has come in as his permanent successor on a three-year deal.
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2Maresca isn't a total stranger to City — he was on Guardiola's coaching staff during the treble-winning 2018-19 season — but this time he's the one making the calls, after stints in charge of Leicester and Chelsea.
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3The squad looks different too: Rodri completed a move to Barcelona at the end of August, and Bernardo Silva left when his contract expired. It's the first City side since 2018-19 without Rodri and since 2016-17 without Bernardo — two genuinely era-defining players gone in one summer.
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4It's also the club's first Champions League campaign without Guardiola since 2015-16, which makes this a proper transition season rather than business as usual with a new face at the front.
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5Whatever happens results-wise early on, cut Maresca some slack in conversation. Replacing a decade of Guardiola is one of the hardest jobs in world football, not a like-for-like swap.
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Top thing to say down the pub
City fans have had a decade of just assuming they'd win the league — this is the first season in a while where that's a genuine question rather than a formality.
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Avoid saying
"City will walk it as usual" — ignores that they've lost their manager of a decade plus Rodri and Bernardo Silva in the same summer, about as big an off-season shake-up as any club in the league has had.