Erling Haaland scored in a sixth consecutive Premier League game to keep Manchester City's 100% start intact with a 3-2 win over Ipswich Town.

Daizen Maeda immediately cancelled out Phil Foden's opener, but Haaland scored in either half to make Enzo Maresca the first manager in the league's history to win his first seven games in charge of a club.

City started brightly, with Ruben Dias sending a header wide before his arrowed effort needed to be punched off the line by Christian Walton.

But the hosts found the breakthrough in the 19th minute as Mateo Kovacic set Jeremy Doku away down the left, and Foden got in front of his defender to poke the Belgian's cross in.

Ipswich hit back quickly after the restart, though, with Abdoul Ouattara's throughball causing havoc for Marc Guehi, who was left on the floor by Maeda, who coolly beat Gianluigi Donnarumma at the near post while one-on-one.

Emersonn then sliced wide, but City heeded that warning in the 34th minute. Kovacic was again heavily involved, and his lovely dinked cross was met by Haaland, who beat Walton with a powerful header. 

City remained in control after the break, with Haaland getting his second 69 minutes in. He latched onto Iliman Ndiaye's stunning pass and outmuscled Ouattara to fire in.

Haaland did have the ball in the back of the net a third time in the 85th minute. Enzo Fernandez – on for the injured Kovacic – forced a smart stop out of Walton before Ndiaye hit the crossbar, but the Argentinian was offside when he recycled it to Haaland, and the goal was disallowed.

Ipswich set up a slightly nervy ending, with Guehi penalised for kicking Abdul Fatawu during an attempted clearance in the box. The penalty was awarded following a VAR review, with substitute Zian Flemming emphatically finishing from 12 yards.

Despite late pressure from both sides, neither could find another goal, and City moved six points clear at the top of the Premier League.

Seven matches. Seven wins. A record-breaking @premierleague start for our boss! https://t.co/UKvIqXsPmr

— Manchester City (@ManCity) October 17, 2026

Maresca writes his name into the history books

City are just the third team to begin their season with seven straight wins after Chelsea in 2005-06 (first nine) and Liverpool in 2019-20 (first eight), but Maresca has his own slice of history.

Never before has a manager won each of his first seven Premier League outings with a club, and it was a much-needed victory after the disappointing Champions League loss to Paris Saint-Germain.

As can be expected, Haaland was at the centre of the victory; he has now netted 100 non-penalty goals in the competition, reaching this milestone in fewer appearances than any other player (139). The previous fewest was 150 appearances by Alan Shearer.

He has also scored at least two goals in 29 different Premier League matches – already the ninth most in the competition's history.

Despite only getting six of their 19 shots on target, City were utterly dominant, accumulating 3.53 expected goals (xG) to Ipswich's 1.66, but the visitors still caused City some issues, and Gary O'Neil will have positives to take from the result.

They once again finished strongly with another 90th-minute goal; 10 of Flemming's 13 Premier League goals have come away from home (77%).