![\"sdjkajshf\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/0024438d-614.jpg\"\/)
<\/p>\nErling Haaland’s early goal fired Manchester City to the top of the Premier League as a 1-0 win at Burnley, which sent the Clarets back down to the Sky Bet Championship.<\/p>\n
Haaland struck just five minutes in at a subdued Turf Moor as City ended Arsenal’s 200-day reign at the top but only on goals scored.<\/p>\n
Rayan Cherki and Haaland both hit the post as City ended the night having had 28 attempts at goal, but could not find a second strike when they had hoped for several.<\/p>\n
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Arsenal can return to the top of the pile when they host Newcastle on Saturday with City in FA Cup semi-final action against Southampton but it is, at least for now, advantage City, who have lost just one of their last 21 league games.<\/p>\n
Burnley had chances of their own as City failed to kill them off, but were unable to trouble Gianluigi Donnarumma as their third relegation in their last three top-flight seasons was confirmed as their winless home league run hit 13 games.<\/p>\n
City initially looked ready to pick up where they left off in Sunday’s critical 2-1 win over Arsenal as they made a rapid start.<\/p>\n
Bernardo Silva had a shot blocked and Cherki\u2019s rising effort was pushed on to the left post by Martin Dubravka before Haaland opened the scoring.<\/p>\n
Jeremy Doku rolled away from Bashir Humphreys and then played the ball for Haaland to stride forward before a nonchalant chip beat the exposed Dubravka \u2013 the Norwegian’s 48th goal for club and country this season, and his eighth goal in his five games against Burnley.<\/p>\n
But the intensity would not last as this turned into a nervous night for Pep Guardiola\u2019s side.<\/p>\n
![\"Josh](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/00244360-614.jpg\"\/)
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City had won 14 of their previous 15 against Burnley by an aggregate score of 45-6, and there could and should have been more goals on the night. Haaland\u2019s effort was deflected over after a neat combination with Cherki, who then saw another shot blocked.<\/p>\n
Silva\u2019s powerful strike hit Haaland before Nico O\u2019Reilly \u2013 moved into midfield in the absence of the injured Rodri \u2013 arrived at the back corner to head goalwards from a corner and was denied by Dubravka. The goalkeeper then stopped O\u2019Reilly again, palming clear his shot from the edge of the box.<\/p>\n
As long as it stayed at 1-0, Burnley had hope against a City side who seemed to be playing in second gear.<\/p>\n
Zian Flemming had a couple of sights of goal, but dragged one shot wide while he was too slow to take up another as Abdukodir Khusanov slid in.<\/p>\n
City tried to up the tempo at the start of the second half, but still the second goal would not come.<\/p>\n
Semenyo should have done better when he poked a shot over after Cherki\u2019s break forward, then Haaland hit the outside of a post with a low strike when the goal was gaping.<\/p>\n
Savinho and Haaland were denied by Dubravka and O\u2019Reilly spurned a glorious chance as the tension went to the wire, with the Burnley goalkeeper going up for a late corner which came to nothing.<\/p>\n
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Listen to the RT\u00c9 Soccer podcast on Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Spotify<\/a> or wherever you get your podcasts<\/a>.<\/p>\n Watch Arsenal v Lyon in the UEFA Women’s Champions League on Sunday from 3pm on RT\u00c9 One and RT\u00c9 Player<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Erling Haaland’s early goal fired Manchester City to the top of the Premier League as a 1-0 win…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":412743,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-412742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412742\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}