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Manchester City will be looking to extend their 100% record in the 2026-27 Premier League when they travel to Villa Park to face Aston Villa on Saturday lunchtime.
Enzo Maresca has made a perfect start to life at the Etihad Stadium since succeeding Pep Guardiola in the summer, with a 3-2 win over Ipswich Town last weekend extending their impressing winning streak to seven games.
The Citizens currently sit three points clear at the top of the table and claiming an eighth win in a row in the Midlands would leave them just one victory away from matching Chelsea's Premier League record of nine consecutive wins to open a campaign.
More impressively, Man City are hunting down the ultimate English top-flight benchmark of 11 straight opening wins, which has stood untouched for over six decades.
Here, Sports Mole takes a closer look at which teams boast the longest 100% starts to an English top-flight season.
Bill Nicholson’s legendary squad set the ultimate English top-flight benchmark by winning their opening 11 matches, a record that remains entirely untouched.
This unprecedented run featured a 4-1 demolition of Manchester United and a thrilling 3-2 North London derby victory over Arsenal, before finally halting with a 1-1 draw against Manchester City.
Fuelled by the lethal strike pairing of Bobby Smith and Les Allen, Spurs comfortably claimed the First Division title and capped off the historic year by lifting the FA Cup to complete the 20th century’s first league and cup double.
Ron Atkinson's Red Devils enjoyed the most explosive start to a modern top-flight campaign, plundering 26 goals across 10 consecutive victories.
They opened with a 4-0 thrashing of Aston Villa and peaked with a spectacular 5-1 routing of West Bromwich Albion before a 1-1 draw with Luton Town snapped the streak.
Despite stretching their unbeaten run to 15 games, a severe shoulder injury to captain and key midfielder Bryan Robson, as well as the distractions surrounding Mark Hughes’s impending transfer to Barcelona, derailed Man United’s season.
They went on to lose 10 of their remaining 27 matches, watching their title aspirations dissolve into a disappointing fourth-place finish.
Led by Jose Mourinho, defending champions Chelsea began their crown-retaining campaign with nine straight victories while conceding just three goals – the best start to a season in the Premier League era (since 1992-93).
Frank Lampard struck twice to secure a 2-1 comeback win over Aston Villa and set a new PL record of seven successive victories, which was extended thanks to emphatic 4-1 and 5-1 hammerings of Liverpool and Bolton Wanderers respectively..
A stubborn 1-1 draw at Everton finally halted the streak, but Chelsea's early buffer proved insurmountable as they held of Sir Alex Ferguson’s Man United to cruise to back-to-back titles.
Having missed out on the Premier League title the previous season by a single point despite amassing a staggering 97 points, Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool channelled their heartbreak into a historic, single-minded pursuit of domestic glory.
They began with an explosive 4-1 dismantling of Norwich City at Anfield, but Klopp’s ‘heavy metal’ football was soon balanced by a newly discovered ability to grind out results when the luxury of fluid play deserted them.
After comfortably dealing with Arsenal (3-1) and Chelsea (2-1), they relied on a 95th-minute James Milner penalty to squeeze past Leicester City 2-1 on matchday eight, leaving them on the precipice of Chelsea’s Premier League record.
However, the run was finally snapped at Old Trafford where an 85th-minute equaliser from Adam Lallana rescued a 1-1 draw against Man United. Liverpool immediately embarked on a staggering 18-game winning streak that played a huge part in the Reds securing their first top-flight title in 30 years, winning a club-record 32 games in a single season.
Kenny Dalglish’s defending champions tore into the new campaign with eight successive wins, prompting the British press to declare the title race over by September.
The crown jewel of the sequence was a majestic John Barnes performance at Anfield, where the Reds humiliated arch-rivals Man United by a 4-0 scoreline, but a 1-1 draw with Norwich ended the winning streak on matchday nine.
Although Liverpool stretched their unbeaten start to 15 games, the emotional and physical strain on Dalglish led to his shock resignation in February 1991 following an chaotic 4-4 FA Cup draw with Everton.
Under caretaker Ronnie Moran and later Graeme Souness, a destabilised Liverpool outfit fell away, finishing as runners-up to an Arsenal side that lost just once all season.
At the turn of the 20th century, Sheffield United unleashed an unprecedented opening assault, winning their first eight games to set a top-flight record that would stand for nearly 60 years.
The peak of their dominance came on matchday seven when they welcomed Wolverhampton Wanderers to Bramall Lane and destroyed them in a 7-2 goal-fest. However, Aston Villa haunted the Blades on Halloween, shattering their perfect start with a 2-1 triumph at Bramall Lane.
Sheffield United’s bright start was not a harbinger of sustained brilliance, as the gruelling campaign eventually wore the team down to a modest seventh-place finish.
The oldest entry on the elite list belongs to Dick Molyneux’s Everton, who put together a brilliant eight-game winning sequence in just the seventh season of the English Football League.
The Toffees showcased sheer firepower as they smashed five past Derby County in a 5-4 thriller, winning 3-0 against Stoke City and treated their home crowd to a 4-2 success over West Brom.
Everton fired in 25 goals across their eight-game streak before a 2-1 away loss to Blackburn Rovers ended their perfect start.
Despite racking up 18 victories in total and scoring an unprecedented 35 away goals, Everton were forced to settle for the runners-up spot, were narrowly edged out to the league title by Sunderland.
Following the seismic summer departure of Pep Guardiola, newly-appointed boss Enzo Maresca made history by becoming the first manager to win each of his first seven Premier League games in charge of a club.
City began their perfect run by navigating past Bournemouth, Crystal Palace and Coventry City before beating bitter rivals Man United 1-0 at Old Trafford with a controversial Erling Haaland goal, despite having Phil Foden sent off in the first half.
An eventful 5-3 home win over Sunderland was followed by a statement 3-0 victory against Liverpool at Anfield in the wake of their guilty verdict for breaching Premier League financial regulations.
Maresca’s squad remain completely unflappable on the pitch despite all the off-field noise and they extended their winning run to seven games when they held off a late Ipswich Town fightback to secure a 3-2 victory at the Etihad Stadium.
Don Revie’s legendary Leeds United side opened their campaign with seven consecutive wins, laying down the groundwork for a historic title run.
Marrying defensive steel with bursts of offensive brilliance, the Whites kick-started the campaign with a 3-1 victory over Everton at Elland Road. A 4-1 hammering of Wolves soon followed before they cruised past Birmingham City 3-0 courtesy of a Peter Lorimer hat-trick.
However, a stubborn Man United side frustrated them in a goalless stalemate at Old Trafford to snap the perfect start on matchday eight.
Nevertheless, a Leeds side led by captain Billy Bremner and spearheaded by Mick Jones’s 14 league goals produced an impressive 29-match unbeaten run, comfortably marching to the First Division title.
Entering the campaign as back-to-back defending English top-flight champions, Sheffield Wednesday burst out of the blocks with seven straight victories to assert their Edwardian dominance.
Their opening run was built entirely on an unyielding backline that surrendered just two goals, featuring a 2-0 shutout of Aston Villa and a 3-0 local derby triumph at Sheffield United.
The unblemished record was finally broken on matchday eight as they suffered a surprise 2-1 away defeat to Arsenal. This loss triggered a severe identity crisis for the champions, whose defensive invincibility evaporated as they slid down the table to finish a disappointing ninth.
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