City won at Old Trafford, but they lost Phil Foden for it, and the second part may end up stinging longer than the first one feels good.
Foden was sent off in the 23rd minute of Sunday's 1-0 win at Manchester United on September 13. His feet caught Bruno Fernandes in the stomach, the referee checked it on VAR and confirmed a red card for violent conduct. Erling Haaland's second-half goal got City the win anyway, keeping their perfect league record intact through four matches. Violent conduct carries a stiffer penalty than a normal sending-off, though: instead of one game, Foden's banned for three.
What should worry Enzo Maresca more than the card itself is this: red-card bans in England cover every competition, not just the one where you picked them up. This one spans the Premier League, the EFL Cup and the FA Cup, so the three missed games are a Carabao Cup tie against Norwich, the home league game against Sunderland on September 20, and the trip to Anfield to face Liverpool around October 11.
That Anfield date is the one that stings. Of all the matches to lose one of your most creative attackers, a trip to Liverpool is the one you'd trade anything to have him back for. It's the biggest measuring-stick fixture in this stretch, the kind of game that tells you where a title challenge actually stands, and Foden won't be there. Three missed games would sting on their own, but this ban happens to swallow the one match City most needed him for.
City has depth, but depth isn't the same as having another Foden. Reports suggest Maresca can turn to new signing Iliman Ndiaye, plus Allan and Ryan McAidoo, and Jeremy Doku might be back from a calf injury in time for Sunderland, though I'd treat that as hope rather than certainty until he's actually on the team sheet. None of them do the specific thing Foden does: find the pocket between the lines and turn a stalemate into a chance. He'd already set up two goals in the three league games before the derby, both in the win at Crystal Palace, a player finding rhythm right when City could least afford to lose him.
That matters more because of who Foden is to this team. The club backed him with a new contract running to 2030 over the summer, and he appeared to have the full backing of Maresca too. Losing him for the Anfield trip in his first season in charge is the kind of test that separates a real title bid from a fast start that fades. How City's attack copes over these three games will say a lot about whether Maresca's squad is deep enough to go the distance, or whether it's built around Foden in a way that shows the moment he's out.
City fans have a fair point too: Fernandes was seen lightly kicking Foden on the backside before Foden reacted, and he wasn't carded for it. Maresca's touchline anger made sense. But it doesn't change the ledger. The red stands, the ban is three games, and the fixtures don't move to accommodate a grievance.
There's a small mercy buried in the rules. Domestic bans don't apply in Europe, so Foden could feature in the Champions League meeting with holders Paris Saint-Germain before the suspension formally ends, and he'll be available again for the visit of newly-promoted Ipswich on October 17. City will survive this stretch. The question is what shape they're in when they walk out at Anfield without him. Right now, that's the game this ban really cost them.
