After Manchester United's defeat in the earliest match of round 2 of the Premier League, Manchester City and Arsenal did not let that happen to them.
The defending champions will host Ipswich Town at the Etihad Stadium with a prediction of a big win against this rookie. But there was a bit of a surprise when the new away team opened the scoring in the 7th minute, with a sharp counter-attack.
However, that was all Ipswich could do, because the rest was a show of strength of champion and individual Erling Haaland.
It only took Man City 5 minutes to equalize, when Haaland successfully converted the penalty. And within just 4 minutes, they scored 2 more consecutive goals.
In the 14th minute, the away team's goalkeeper made a mistake under pressure from Savinho and Kevin de Bruyne when the ball bounced out, raising the score to 2-1.
In the 16th minute, it was the Belgian midfielder's turn to make a long pass for Haaland to run down, get past the goalkeeper and score.
With Man City controlling the ball up to 76%, the away team only had 1 more shot in the first half, and in the second half of the match, the image of an amateur boxer completely suffered the match against a heavy opponent.
In the 88th minute, Haaland ended the match with a decisive shot from outside the penalty area. The Norwegian striker had his first hat-trick of the 2024-2025 season to quickly create an advantage in the top scorer race.
After the match, coach Pep Guardiola said that Haaland could well challenge and compete for the records created by Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi.
Man City's 25th unbeaten match also marked the return of midfielder Ilkay Gundogan to the Etihad Stadium when he came on in the 71st minute.
Winning 4-1, Man City temporarily took the top spot with an extra goal difference over Brighton and Arsenal, the team with 3 points at Aston Villa.
Not as excited as Man City, the "Gunners" even had to rely on the luck and excellence of goalkeeper David Raya to avoid conceding, before Leandro Trossard and Thomas Partey scored in turn (minutes 67 and 77), bringing Arsenal the second consecutive victory with a score of 2-0.
Also in the series on Saturday (8.24), Tottenham won the first match of the season with a score of 4-0 against Everton, in which Son Heung-min had a double. West Ham and Nottingham Forest won at Crystal Palace (2-0) and Southampton (1-0), while Fulham kept 3 points at home in a 2-1 victory over Leicester City.
