As tonight sees Manchester City face Newcastle United in the League Cup semi-final here’s a reminder of the first ever League Cup semi played by the Blues. That came in 1964 and was a two-legged, often forgotten, tie. The first leg ended in a 2-0 defeat to Stoke in January 1964 and then on 5 February City defeated Stoke 1-0 in the second leg of the League Cup semi-final. The goalscorer was Derek Kevan. This was the first time City had reached the semi final stage but the competition was not particularly welcome at this time in football history. Here’s a report of the game:
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Attendances across football were low in this competition. This Maine Road tie with Stoke was watched by 16,894. The first leg, on 15 January, had seen City suffer a 2-0 loss at Stoke.
Were you at either of these games? Please post your comments if you were. I’m keen to understand how fans felt about the semi final back in 1964.
It’s been an enjoyable day at the Etihad today (10 January 2026). Manchester City established a new record score at the Etihad Stadium and an incredible nine different players scored City’s goals (2 goals judged to be own goals it seems). The FA Cup game ended 10-1 which is not quite City’s highest score in the FA Cup but it is a record home score for the Etihad.
For many of us it brought back memories of another 10-1 – back in 1987 when we beat Huddersfield Town 10-1 in the League. That day City had three hat trick heroes – Tony Adcock, Paul Stewart and David White (I bumped into David pre-match today. It must have been a good omen) – whereas today had so many scorers.
The scorers were:
Manchester City
M. Alleyne (12′)
Rodri (24′)
J. Doyle-Hayes (42′ og)
J. Fitzwater (45’+2 og)
R. Lewis (49′, 90’+1)
A. Semenyo (54′)
T. Reijnders (71′)
N. O’Reilly (79′)
R. McAidoo (86′)
Exeter City
G. Birch (90′)
Interestingly the goal scoring pattern was similar to 1987 – 4-0 at half time, City take a 9-0 lead, opposition make it 9-1 and then City score a tenth.
City v Chelsea today (4 January 2026 at 5.30pm). This has been an important fixture over the decades with European semi finals played between the sides decades ago for example. Many of these are featured on this website, so why not have a search around. Here’s a link to all articles tagged Chelsea on here: https://gjfootballarchive.com/tag/chelsea/
1971 ECWC v Chelsea. Tony Book and mascot Paul Todd. Photo by Alan Jubb
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It’s Sunderland v Manchester City tonight (1 January 2025). There are plenty of features on my website about games & stories connecting these clubs. Here’s a link to some of them: https://gjfootballarchive.com/?s=Sunderland
Congratulations to Khadija ‘Bunny’ Shaw on becoming the first Manchester City Women player to score 100 goals since the relaunch of the club. It’s a wonderful feat and she deserves immense praise. Here’s City’s report of today’s (14 December 2025) 6-1 victory over Aston Villa which saw Shaw score 4 goals:
Today’s (8 December 2025) FA Cup third round draw has resulted in Manchester City and Exeter being drawn against each for what will be the first competitive fixture ever between the clubs. It’s always satisfying when the FA Cup throws up a unique occasion like this. Looking forward to it.
Now that Erling Haaland has joined an exclusive group of Manchester City players who have scored 100 League goals for the club I thought I’d post a table of all those players. I’ve also listed them in a goals per game format (I’d love to do goals per minutes but we simply don’t have that information for all players). Here goes…
The goals per game ratios for all Manchester City players who have scored 100 league goals or more…
Goals
First Name
Surname
Goals Per Game
Total League Appearances
100
Erling
Haaland
0.9009
111
184
Sergio
Aguero
0.6691
275
126
Billy
Gillespie
0.5780
218
120
Horace
Barnes
0.5530
217
122
Tommy
Browell
0.5495
222
116
Frank
Roberts
0.5370
216
158
Tommy
Johnson
0.4817
328
112
Francis
Lee
0.4498
249
110
Fred
Tilson
0.4472
246
142
Joe
Hayes
0.4290
331
107
Alec
Herd
0.4163
257
146
Billy
Meredith
0.3989
366
158
Eric
Brook
0.3511
450
117
Colin
Bell
0.2970
394
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It doesn’t feel that long ago since I did something like this for Sergio Aguero and I honestly felt it would be some time before the opportunity came again but then Erling Haaland arrived at Manchester City. So much was rightly made of Erling scoring his 100th Premier League goal last night that I thought I’d post a comparison between him and all other players who have netted 100 Premier League goals. Instead of totals though I decided to focus on the goals per game ratio and so here is a list of the top 25 goals per game ratios of PL players who have netted 100 goals or more. There are some amazing players on this list but significantly Haaland tops that list by some distance. It’s also gratifying to see that Aguero is third on the list.
The top 25 goals per game ratios for all PL players who have scored 100 goals or more… (note: some sources incorrectly put Kane above Aguero)
Goals
First Name
Surname
Goals Per Game
Total PL Appearances
100
Erling
Haaland
0.9009
111
175
Thierry
Henry
0.6783
258
184
Sergio
Aguero
0.6691
275
213
Harry
Kane
0.6656
320
190
Mo
Salah
0.6070
313
260
Alan
Shearer
0.5896
441
113
Ian
Wright
0.5305
213
144
Robin
van Persie
0.5143
280
127
Jimmy
Floyd Hasselbank
0.4739
268
150
Michael
Owen
0.4601
326
187
Andy
Cole
0.4517
414
103
Cristiano
Ronaldo
0.4364
236
121
Romelu
Lukaku
0.4353
278
163
Robbie
Fowler
0.4301
379
149
Les
Ferdinand
0.4245
351
145
Jamie
Vardy
0.4240
342
208
Wayne
Rooney
0.4236
491
111
Sadio
Mane
0.4221
263
104
Didier
Drogba
0.4094
254
106
Darren
Bent
0.3841
276
127
Son
Heung-min
0.3814
333
100
Matt
Le Tissier
0.3704
270
126
Robbie
Keane
0.3610
349
111
Dion
Dublin
0.3558
312
146
Teddy
Sheringham
0.3493
418
Watch this space for other comparisons over the coming weeks.
If you enjoy all the free material on my website and would like to support my research and keep this website going (but don’t want to subscribe) then why not make a one-time donation (or buy me a coffee). All support for my research is valued and welcome. It allows me to keep some free material available for all. Thanks.
It’s part of the football circus these days that occasional defeats are greeted as devastating occurences. Social media goes into meltdown; shock jock style radio stations begin to predict the end of eras and even the BBC seems to take a ‘your all doomed’ approach if you lose a game. After City’s narrow defeat at Villa last week the BBC’s website stated: ‘In the context of the title race, there are concerning signs for City’ and elsewhere on the BBC there were fans quoted complaining about the weaknesses in the team. So, to take a more reasoned view I decided to take a look at the 2020-21 season when similar reporting occurred of City’s games. Back then pundits like the former Arsenal player Martin Keown were highly critical of City. After five games of the 2020-21 season City were 12th and Keown said: ‘there’s certainly some rebuilding to be done. We will see how good Pep really is now; he’s got to rebuild the team.’
Those Keown comments are similar to some being aired at the moment about City being rebuilt etc. Pep proved back then (I wonder if he chatted to Keown about his comments in 2020?) how good he was.
Back in 2020-21 City lost to Tottenham in their eighth League game. That put Spurs top and some began predicting the London club may manage to actually win the league. Similarly, some predicted that City were too unpredictable to lift the title. The statistic often quoted that weekend was that City’s points total of 12 from eight games was the club’s lowest at that stage since 2008-09. Very similar style comments to this season when the BBC quoted (after the Villa defeat): ‘City have lost three of their opening nine games in the Premier League this season (W5 D1), with the Cityzens last suffering more defeats at this stage of a league campaign in 2008-09 (four).‘
As a direct comparison it’s worth noting that City are two points behind where they were five years ago, and in both seasons faced criticism. Remarkably City ended up winning the Premier League in 2020-21 by 12 points and the early season leaders Spurs finished seventh. Some pundits and journalists would later rewrite history and go on to talk as if the 2020-21 title race had been a foregone conclusion with City ‘dominating football’ like no other team had ever done before (it was ‘bad’ for football, blah, blah blah). They talked negatively about other teams not standing a chance etc. but that is so wrong.
So, what am I going on about. Well, if 2020-21 shows us anything it is that no league title is decided so early in the season. Nor does a defeat mean all is lost. City are currently two points behind where they were in that remarkable 2020-21 season, when they won the title by 12 points. Imagine if that happened again? I know it’s doubtful and Arsenal are certainly a better team than they were back then and Spurs were too. But football’s unpredictable and anything is possible.
For those wondering here are 2020-21’s results at this stage followed by a table with this season’s:
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