Premier League REVIEW 20 Sep 2026: Manchester City repay one unanimous call and Leeds United bury the other in a goalless draw

Four fixtures, and the two our models agreed about most completely finished at opposite ends of the day. Every one of our eight picked Leeds United to beat Crystal Palace, and every one picked Manchester City to beat Sunderland. Manchester City won 5-3. Leeds United drew 0-0. The two ties we could not separate did the rest of the damage: Fulham against Manchester United, which our models split four and four, finished 1-1, the one result neither half of them had picked, and only at the Vitality Stadium, where six of the eight leaned to the visitors, did a hedged call land. We published this morning that Elland Road and the Etihad Stadium were the firm ground of this card. Half of that was right, and it was the half that came with the most goals.

Manchester City 5 Sunderland 3 is a scoreline that refused to settle. Enzo Fernandez put the home side ahead in the ninth minute and Brian Brobbey levelled in the twelfth, Rayan Cherki restored the lead in the twenty-ninth and Brobbey levelled again in the thirty-third. Antoine Semenyo scored in the forty-third and again in the fifty-seventh, and Brobbey answered for a third time in the fifty-ninth, prodding in after Nilson Angulo had got to a ball ahead of the goalkeeper. Erling Haaland ended it in the eighty-first, turning in a low cross from Josko Gvardiol; the offside flag went up on the field and the goal was awarded once it had been reviewed. Enzo Maresca, watching leads get pulled back all afternoon, said afterwards: "I prefer to win 1-0 than 5-3." Regis Le Bris took a Sunderland team to the Etihad Stadium, scored three, and went home with nothing.

Leeds United 0 Crystal Palace 0 is the one that cost us. Our eight models were unanimous, Elland Road had every reason to expect a home win, and the closest either side came was a Crystal Palace effort in the fifty-second minute that was disallowed for an offside in the build-up. Pierre Sage said the decision was the right one and that his side deserved more than they got. Daniel Farke's Leeds kept finding Walter Benitez in the way, the goalkeeper pushing away a close-range attempt after James Justin had crossed. Jayden Bogle and Ao Tanaka were cautioned for Leeds, Adam Wharton, Yeremy Pino and Jefferson Lerma for Palace: a tight, ill-tempered afternoon that our models had read as a formality.

Fulham 1 Manchester United 1 was the fixture nothing could separate beforehand and very little separated afterwards. Fulham went ahead in the sixty-third minute with a goal our data credits to them as an own goal by Lisandro Martinez, the Manchester United defender turning in a Calvin Bassey shot that had bounced awkwardly off his own goalkeeper. It stayed that way until the eighty-ninth, when Patrick Dorgu, on as a substitute, fed Matheus Cunha and the shot went in off David Affengruber. Alvaro Arbeloa had the lead his side had spent the afternoon earning, and then did not have it. Michael Carrick leaves London with a point his team took in the last act of the match.

At the Vitality Stadium, AFC Bournemouth 0 Liverpool 1 went the way most of our models expected and none of the way the game looked. Alexander Isak scored in the fifty-seventh minute, left alone inside the box as a ball looped up to him. Andoni Iraola, who returned to the club he used to manage, said he knows very well how difficult it is to win there, and he was not pretending his side had been good: he named the opening twenty-five minutes as the part he was disappointed with. Marco Rose put the defeat down to a single situation his side defended badly, having already made the point that nobody is awarded points for looking good. That is the card: our models were loudest about Manchester City and about Leeds United, and were honoured at one ground and refuted at the other.