Manchester City 1-0 Coventry, Fulham 2-3 Crystal Palace and more: football clockwatch – as it happened

2026-09-05 · Guardian-PL

Erling Haaland scored his 300th club goal while Crystal Palace’s left wing-backs grabbed the glory at Craven Cottage Iliman Ndiaye starts for City after joining from Everton in the week. Phil Foden drops out and will be joined on the bench by City’s other big signing, Enzo Fernandez. Coventry bring in Ethan Pinnock and Frank Onyeka for Caleb Yirenki and Loum Tchaouna.

Hull City v Aston Villa (5.30pm) The last match of the day will kick off shortly. Hull have two wins out of two and could end the day on top of the table. You can join Billy Munday for all the action.

Match report: Fulham 2-3 Crystal Palace

The managers may have changed but the result stays the same. For the fourth successive trips to this part of west London, Crystal Palace returned to south London with all three points in the bag as Pierre Sage got his reign off the mark in dramatic style. Their hero was Ben Chilwell, the former England left-back who was signed on deadline day from Strasbourg after helping Palace to win the FA Cup last May, after he came off the bench to volley home the winner.

It was a bitter blow to take for Fulham’s new manager Álvaro Arbeloa, who had seen his side lead twice through the impressive Josh King – showing his real potential in front of the watching England manager, Thomas Tuchel – and César Palacios before being pegged back twice by Tyrick Mitchell, the second in bizarre circumstances. They left the pitch to boos from some supporters and remain pointless after three matches.

But having won here three times in 2025 under Oliver Glasner, this has been a happy hunting ground for Palace and Chilwell could not contain his delight as he celebrated with the travelling fans at the full-time whistle.

Match report: Brentford 1-1 Sunderland

True redemption, perhaps, would have been to score with a Panenka, but Enzo Le Fée didn’t quite have the chutzpah for that. His duffed dink at Brentford last season was the low point of one of Sunderland’s two worst performances of the season, but he converted from the spot with eight minutes remaining to earn a point in a battle of two physically aggressive and well-drilled teams who must look at the chaos elsewhere and be thinking again of top-half finishes.

It had seemed that it would be a tale of Brentford’s newfound strength in depth and a second-half turnaround as they overcame a rocky first period to have the better of the second after a triple change at half-time – having already lost Nathan Collins. But instead it was a Sunderland substitute who made the key contribution, Wilson Isodor being pulled down by Keane Lewis-Potter at the back post to earn the penalty.

Match report: Nottingham Forest 0-0 Tottenham

For the third successive league match, Tottenham failed to score and this time they did not even muster a shot on target. Excluding a 5-1 win against a Charlton B team in the Carabao Cup, their season so far reads: five goals against and none scored. For a couple of minutes Nottingham Forest thought they had added to that goals-against tally but Neco Williams was adjudged to have handled when stooping to head in on the goalline as Sandro Tonali and Jan Paul van Hecke attempted to prevent Morgan Gibbs-White’s deflected effort bobbling towards the net.

The mood music surrounding Roberto De Zerbi has been overwhelmingly positive since the Italian arrived at the end of March and led the rescue mission; see the Birra Moretti-themed flag on show in the away end here. But Spurs, for whom Mykhailo Mudryk arrived as a late substitute for his first competitive appearance for 645 days, still struggled in front of goal. Dominic Solanke, another late sub, headed on to the roof of Matz Sels’s net on 88 minutes and that was as good as things got for the visitors. Where was all the firepower? Last season’s top goalscorer, Richarlison, is training separately from De Zerbi’s first team after rejecting an offer from Everton and not in Spurs’s 25-man squad.

Match report: Brighton 1-1 Leeds

What might have been; what should have been. Leeds United remain unbeaten three games into the season, but they will rue not departing the south coast with another win to add to their impressive start to the Premier League campaign.

They certainly had chances. By the time Brighton finally woke up with around half an hour remaining, Bart Verbruggen would have been wondering how on earth his goal had only once been breached, so great was Leeds’ dominance and so bullied had his side been. Yet, aside from Jayden Bogle’s early tap-in, the visitors just could not put the game to bed.

Their profligacy proved costly when Luka Vuskovic headed in with 19 minutes remaining to set up an unlikely thunderous conclusion from the hosts, which left Leeds clinging on to a point. Not since 2009, at the Withdean Stadium, have Leeds won an away game at Brighton.

Match report: Manchester City 1-0 Coventry

Enzo Fernández started for Manchester City after Nico O’Reilly’s back injury during the warm-up and sparkled to show why the club paid a British record-equalling £125m for the midfielder.

The winner, for a stuttering home team, came courtesy of Erling Haaland’s 300th club goal and Fernández had a key cameo, feeding Antoine Semenyo, whose cross from the right was crashed home.

In the second half, particularly, Coventry hammered away, but their wait for a first top-flight goal since Mustapha Hadji’s on 5 May 2001 goes on.

The visitors will not like losing, but can be heartened by holding the star-studded hosts to a slender win, though the bottom line is all three of their Premier League outings on their return have been defeats. Enzo Maresca’s men have a maximum nine points so can be supremely satisfied at the start under the Italian.

This is the updated Premier League table. You’d have got long odds on Man City and Arsenal being the top two.

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