Maresca’s flawless start demands a closer look at City’s standout stars
Seven games into the season, Enzo Maresca still hasn’t tasted a draw or a defeat at the helm of Manchester City. Five Premier League wins have been backed up by positive starts in both the Champions League and the Carabao Cup, and the early-season player ratings review from Manchester Evening News points to two men driving it.
The Marc Guehi Man City switch this summer looks like shrewd business seven games in. His influence at the back has been matched only by Erling Haaland’s usual menace up front, and together they’ve given Maresca’s side a platform that looks built to last.
City fans have grown used to strong starts under previous managers, but this one carries a different feel. It isn’t just about goals scored, though there have been plenty of those too. The defensive solidity has been just as striking, and that’s largely down to the summer arrival now marshalling the back line alongside a captain’s group that has bought into Maresca’s demands early.
What makes this run stand out is the balance behind it. Plenty of teams start seasons well on the back of one exceptional individual. Maresca’s side, by contrast, look strong in two very different areas of the pitch, and that’s rarely an accident this early in a campaign.
How Marc Guehi’s 9/10 rating reveals City’s defensive transformation
Guehi was handed a 9/10 rating in the Manchester Evening News player ratings review, which named him City’s best defender so far this season. That’s a bold call this early in a campaign, but the numbers behind it back it up.
September has been a near-perfect month defensively. City kept four clean sheets in a row during the month, and Guehi’s positioning and composure have been central to that run. For a player who arrived with plenty of expectation, he’s settled into the side without any obvious teething problems, which isn’t always the case for a defender learning a new system at a new club.
What stands out is how quickly he’s made himself indispensable. Defenders new to a club often need time to read a manager’s system, but Guehi looks like he’s been organising this back line for years rather than months. He reads danger early, steps out to press at the right moments, and rarely looks rushed even under pressure from quick counter attacks.
Supporters heading into our recent Premier League match previews will have noticed his name pencilled in as a certainty most weeks. That kind of trust from a manager, so soon after a summer move, says plenty about how quickly Guehi has won over the dressing room and the coaching staff alike.
Haaland’s lethal efficiency and September’s defensive iron curtain
While Guehi has quietly rebuilt the defence, Haaland has kept doing what he does best. He also picked up a 9/10 rating in the same review, having scored five Premier League goals this season, three of them opening goals, along with a brace away at Porto.
That combination of a settled defence and a ruthless forward is exactly what Maresca will have wanted when he took charge. Four clean sheets and a striker scoring at that rate don’t happen together by accident. It reflects a squad that’s organised from back to front, with each unit doing its job well enough to cover for the other when things get stretched.
Haaland’s habit of scoring first, in particular, has set the tone for City again and again this season. Early goals settle nerves, force opponents to change their approach, and give the rest of the team licence to play on the front foot rather than chase a game.
The one blemish on an otherwise flawless run came in the Manchester derby, where Phil Foden was sent off. It’s a minor setback in the context of seven unbeaten games, but a reminder that discipline will matter as the fixtures pile up over the coming weeks and rotation becomes harder to avoid.
Can Guehi and Haaland maintain City’s momentum across all fronts?
There’s plenty still to prove, but the Marc Guehi Man City story so far reads as one of the transfer window’s smartest pieces of business. Pairing his defensive reliability with Haaland’s finishing gives Maresca a foundation few other Premier League sides can currently match this early in the campaign.
The schedule won’t get any easier. With Carabao Cup commitments continuing alongside league and European fixtures, squad depth will be tested, and Maresca has already shown a willingness to rotate, as seen in our coverage of Carabao Cup rotation options against Norwich.
Nobody at City will be getting carried away this early in the season. Seven games is seven games, and there’s a long way still to go before anyone starts talking seriously about where this squad might finish.
But with Guehi marshalling the defence and Haaland finding the net at will, the foundations Maresca has built in his first seven games look solid enough to carry the momentum forward into a demanding autumn.
