Brian Brobbey scored three goals against the champions-elect at the Etihad and still lost. Forget the final score for a second, forget City's unbeaten run: a striker at a club still finding its footing in this league put together a hat-trick good enough to headline most Premier League weekends, and it bought Sunderland nothing more than a respectable scoreline.
That's the cold logic of where City stand right now: this was not a City masterclass. Sunderland came flying out of the gate and, by the numbers, deserved more than they got. Both keepers were worked, both sides hit the woodwork, and City's own defending was loose enough that one report called it "characterized by poor defending," with Brobbey a constant thorn in their side all afternoon. If you're looking for reasons to doubt this City side heading into a title race, this game handed them to you.
And yet they won again. Three different scorers across the game, and a finish from Erling Haaland with nine minutes left that settled it. That's what should worry the rest of the league: City don't need to be at their best to beat a team playing better than them for long stretches. They just need enough moments, and on this evidence they've got no shortage of players capable of producing one.
It was Antoine Semenyo, not Haaland, who made the real difference for City. His first goal put City back in front just before halftime, and his second, just short of the hour, bought City the space it needed to survive Brobbey's finishing. Two goals at exactly the moments City needed them, and for my money he was the best player on the pitch not wearing a Sunderland shirt.
Haaland's goal matters beyond the final score. He's now scored against every side he's faced in the Premier League, Sunderland included, a team that had denied him last season. That's the kind of quiet, cumulative dominance that doesn't make headlines the way a hat-trick does, but it's scarier for the rest of the league. Brobbey's day will be remembered by Sunderland fans for years. Haaland's is just another line in a ledger that keeps growing.
Zoom out and the table backs it up, for now. City go into the international break as the league's only team with a perfect record, three points clear at the top after Arsenal lost at Brighton the day before. Enzo Maresca has started his City tenure with five wins from five, a run that puts him alongside a small group of managers to do that in charge of a new club, Pep Guardiola among them. That's a strong start, though five games is five games, and nobody should mistake a September table for a June trophy.
Maresca sounded more relieved than triumphant afterward, admitting City conceded too easily and calling Sunderland "strong, dangerous." I'd take him at his word. This wasn't the ruthless City performance the scoreline suggests. It was City surviving a track meet because they have more individual quality than everyone else on the pitch, a different and more fragile kind of dominance. Against a sharper opponent, this exact performance loses. Brobbey should be proud, and Sunderland should be encouraged. City, meanwhile, should probably be a little uneasy about how much it's leaning on moments rather than control.
