Brentford 0-1 Manchester City: Haaland earns Guardiola landmark victory

Erling Haaland's early goal earned Manchester City a 1-0 win over Brentford and a landmark Premier League victory for Pep Guardiola.

Guardiola won his 250th top-flight match in charge of City at the Gtech Community Stadium on Sunday, as his team picked up their first league victory on the road since the opening weekend.

Haaland netted the decisive goal in the ninth minute, showing his strength to leave Sepp van den Berg behind before hitting the back of the net with aplomb.

Caoimhin Kelleher then made a smart stop to keep out the unmarked Tijjani Reijnders' instinctive volley before the break, keeping Brentford in the match.

The Bees attempted a second-half comeback, with Igor Thiago seeing a superb chance smothered by Gianluigi Donnarumma after Josko Gvardiol failed to clear the ball.

But City – who lost Rodri to injury in the first half – held out for all three points despite a slightly nervy end after Kevin Schade charged down a Donnarumma clearance, only for it to ricochet wide for a corner. 

City move up to fifth in the table, three points behind leaders Arsenal, heading into the international break, with Brentford sitting in 16th.

Data Debrief: Into the record books

Guardiola has now won 250 of his 349 Premier League games in charge of City (D50 L49), the fastest any manager has ever reached the landmark with an English club (16th to do so overall).

And he was indebted to Haaland, who has now scored in nine consecutive appearances for club and country (six in two for Norway, 10 in seven for City) – the longest scoring run of his top-flight/international career.

The Norwegian has also now scored in 22 of the 23 stadiums he has played at in the top-flight (failing only at Anfield), the highest ratio of any player to appear at more than one ground in the competition's history.

It was a fairly even match in the end, though, with both teams accumulating 0.83 expected goals (xG), despite City having 10 shots to Brentford's four.