Manchester City head into the international break with a three-point lead at the top of the Premier League after a caotic 5-3 win at home to Sunderland on Sunday.
After Arsenal's 100 per cent record had been ended by Brighton 24 hours earlier, Enzo Maresca's men were made to fight all the way to preserve theirs at the Etihad Stadium as Dutch striker Brian Brobbey scored a hat-trick for the battling Black Cats.
City had twice taken the lead only through Enzo Fernandez and Rayan Cheki, only for Brobbey to haul Sunderland level on both occasions. An Antoine Semenyo double put City 4-2 up ahead of Brobbey's third for the visitors, before Erling Haaland scored his first ever goal against Sunderland to seal the points in a game where neither side's defence covered themselves in glory.
“If you’re winning at the end, you definitely enjoy it, if you lose, not so much,” said Semenyo. “It was a tough battle today. We knew it would be hard. They’re a very good team … We held on together as a team and we got the three points.”
City's ninth-minute opener came about thanks to some quick thinking from Fernandez. The Argentine curled a quick free-kick from the right hand side of the penalty inside the near-post and into the back of net leaving Sunderland goalkeeper Robin Roefs red faced.
The lead would last three minutes, though, when Brobbey collected a fine Enzo Le Fee pass before stabbing a shot past Gianluigi Donnarumma to deservedly level the scores for Sunderland, who had already seen Nilson Angulo miss a glorious chance to put his team 1-0 ahead.
City restored their lead just before the half-hour mark when Sunderland were caught trying to play the ball out from the back. The ball arrived at the feet of Semenyo in the box and his touch found Cherki who was given time to drill a low shot past Roefs for the French attacker's third goal of the season.
Remarkably, the Black Cats equalised again within five minutes. Another fantastic ball through the backline by Le Fee put Thomas Meunier in on goal and his cutback gave Brobbey a simple tap in for his second goal of the game, as the Dutch striker doubled his tally for the season. A VAR check showed Ruben Dias's boot had played Le Fee onside.
But the Wearsiders' porous backline would concede again three minutes before half-time. A cross into the box caused chaos in the Sunderland defence, ending with Semenyo thumping home a low shot.
There was still time in the opening half for Haaland to miss an absolute sitter after being teed-up by Iliman Ndiaye and Donnarumma to tip a looping deflected effort from Brobbey over the bar.
Semenyo grabbed his second and City's fourth in the 57th minute after Sunderland's defence made a mess dealing with Cherki's through ball. The ball looped into the air before falling to Ghanaian attacker Semenyo who slotted home confidently into the bottom corner.
Once again, Sunderland refused to lie down and made it 4-3 two minutes later with Brobbey completing his hat-trick, tapping home from a couple of metres out. And Regis Le Bris' side came agonisingly close to making it 4-4 as Dias narrowly avoided scoring an own-goal, hooking his own poor touch off the goalline.
With nine minutes to go, the points were finally in the bag for City. Substitute Jeremy Doku, making his first appearance since the Community Shield loss to Arsenal due to injury, put a brilliant ball through for Josko Gvardiol, who then picked out Haaland at the back post and the striker tapped home for his fifth league goal of the campaign.
Another fine Doku ball then found fellow substitute Nico O'Reilly but Roefs came out to block well to prevent a sixth, while Sunderland would also hit the post in stoppage time of a thrilling, breathless encounter.
“It's hard being on the losing side when you're scoring three goals,” said Brobbey. “It was up and down, up and down. Man City are a really good team with lots of quality.”
Liverpool scrap to three points
Andoni Iraola's first game back at Bournemouth ended with a hard-fought victory thanks to Alexander Isak's fourth goal of the season.
The Spanish coach left the Vitality Stadium for Merseyside during the summer and is now unbeaten in five games at his new club, albeit three of those have ended in draws, leaving Liverpool in sixth place, six points shy of leaders City.
Striker Isak had been having a poor game on the south coast only to be at the right place to finish after good work from Cody Gakpo.
Iraola's replacement, Marco Rose, is still without a top-flight win with his team dropping to 17th place on three points.
“It's very important for us to get goals, Alexander Isak included,” said Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk. “It was good win here, a clean sheet and we go to the international break before bracing ourselves for a very intense period. Let's all stay clam and keep working and not get ahead of ourselves.”
In the day's other early game, unbeaten Leeds United moved up to fifth place after a goalless draw at home to Crystal Palace, with the Eagles in 15th on four points.
