Lancashire

Noel Sliney
BBC Sport senior journalist

BBC Sport examines some of the main talking points as Manchester City prepare to host Burnley on Saturday.

Pep Guardiola spoke this week of his City side "recovering many, many things that last season we were missing", but statistically they have made their worst start to a top-flight campaign since 2006.

City are ninth in the table, eight points adrift of leaders Liverpool. They have been in the lead for 54% of their total minutes played, more than any other side, yet have only won two of five league games.

There has been heavy scrutiny of Sunday's draw at Arsenal, when City's 32.8% share of possession was the lowest of Guardiola's 601 top-flight matches as a manager. The Catalan admits the increasingly daring approach of opposition sides has forced him to adapt tactically after years of City dominating through patient build-up play.

There are clear signs amid Manchester City's stuttering start that they are developing new weapons. By defending deeper, they have been able to create space for Erling Haaland and others on the counter-attack; City have scored a league-high three goals this season from breakaway attacks which started in their own half. That is already as many as in the whole of 2024-25, and one more than in 2023-24.

On Saturday, City are likely to revert to familiar ways against a Burnley side with the division's lowest average possession figure of 34%. Furthermore, City have won the past 13 meetings by an aggregate score of 46-2, which is the fifth longest winning run in their history against one side.

Testing start for promoted Burnley

Burnley have not triumphed in 19 league visits to Manchester City, since a 5-2 victory in March 1963.

Scott Parker's side have endured a predictably tough start to the season, compounded by Tuesday's EFL Cup home defeat by Cardiff City. An unforgiving Premier League fixture list means they have already played Liverpool, Tottenham and Manchester United.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Burnley have faced the most shots (95) in the division, with summer signing Martin Dubravka making an unrivalled 19 saves so far.

Dubravka has also launched 61 goal-kicks into the opposition's half, more than twice as many as any other team. That strategy is a far cry from two seasons ago when Vincent Kompany's promoted Burnley side stuck to their short-passing principles. They only took four points from their opening 13 games and finished second bottom.

The current team have the same tally after five matches – will their eventual fate be any different?

Preston North End's Lewis Dobbin says the squad can aspire for Championship promotion this season, using their performance against Middlesbrough as the benchmark.

North End have lost just one game from their opening six and sit fifth in the table with 11 points, five points behind leaders Boro. Their highest finish since returning to the Championship in 2015-16 was seventh in 2017-18.

Rob Edward's Boro earned a late equaliser at Deepdale earlier this month in a game the hosts felt they should have won.

"When we played Middlesbrough we were unlucky not to win that game and obviously they're top of the league, so I don't see why we can't be up there come the end of the season," Dobbin told BBC Radio Lancashire.

"We're in fifth because we've earned it, we're there on merit. The games we've won, we've had good performances and we've probably outplayed teams."

The forward, who is on loan from Premier League side Aston Villa, has made an impact in recent weeks, making three appearances in the last three fixtures and getting a goal and an assist.

Dobbin suffered a calf injury in March while on loan at Norwich City which ruled him out for the rest of the 2024-25 season, but was able to secure his loan move to Preston North End after interest from multiple clubs.

"You want to be out there showing everyone what you can do because I feel like I'm making up for a bit of lost time," he added.

"[The loan] is good for me because I don't want to be sat on the bench getting five or 10 minutes. I want to be playing, I want to be an important player, I want to get as many games under my belt as possible."

North End will face similarly high-flying Bristol City on Saturday (15:00 BST) at Deepdale, hoping to leapfrog the Robins who sit third in the league, also on 11 points.

"There's not one fixture that you look at and think we shouldn't be getting three points," he said. "I think that's the mentality. If we want to do well this year that's got to be the mentality throughout the whole club."

Listen to the full interview with Lewis Dobbin and more North End on Sounds.

Chris Collinson
BBC Sport football statistician

Leeds, Burnley and Sunderland have taken a combined 19 points from their opening five games, making it the best start to a Premier League season by the promoted sides since 2017-18.

In fact, only four times in Premier League history have the promoted sides made a better start to a season.

So why have this season's trio started so much better than Leicester, Ipswich and Southampton last campaign?

Because they've been much more successful at keeping Premier League opposition at bay, conceding six fewer goals and giving up 31 fewer chances between them.

Leeds, Burnley and Sunderland haven't actually been much better in attack.

While they've scored four more goals than the promoted sides did at this stage last season, they've taken a similar number of shots and generated fewer expected goals between them, so there's still room for improvement going forward.

Preston North End manager Paul Heckingbottom has been speaking to the media ahead of the Championship match against Bristol City on Saturday (15:00 BST).

Here are the main talking points:

• Preston North End have Lewis Gibson fit to play against Bristol City on Saturday. The central defender had to come off in the second half of last Saturday's 1-0 win at Derby County with a neck injury.

• Striker Milutin Osmajic will be assessed before the team is named. He returned to training today after spending two days in London answering FA charges. Brad Potts is back in training but will not be involved this weekend.

• Amid Osmajic's charges, Heckingbottom has affirmed with his players that he and his staff are available to talk to about issues outside of the training ground, and cites his young coaching staff as a reason his players feel able to do so.

• The successful start to the season is more satisfying for Heckingbottom after questions about squad strength prior to the season starting.

• North End's ability to get points on the road and edge out opponents in close-fought games are seen as the main contributing factors to their positive start, with the club currently fifth in the table.

• Heckingbottom praised the atmosphere created by fans at Deepdale so far and encouraged more of the same, particularly when against higher quality opponents and when in losing positions.

Listen to the full press conference and more Preston North End on Sounds.

Burnley left-back Quilindschy Hartman has been speaking to BBC Radio Lancashire about his time with the Clarets since his move from Feyenoord in the summer, having featured in all five Premier League games so far this season.

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Nicola Pearson
BBC Sport journalist

Burnley boss Scott Parker has been speaking to the media before Saturday's Premier League game against Manchester City at Etihad Stadium (kick-off 15:00 BST).

Here are the key lines from his news conference:

• Despite just the one win and one draw from their opening five Premier League games, Parker feels the side are in a "good place" after "some really tough and challenging fixtures to start this season".

• He added: "We've had to show some resilience at times, which has been hugely encouraging for me as a manager. We have been posed some tough challenges and have taken some real encouragement from them. We have been on the wrong end of a couple of those results in the last minute with two penalties, but overall I'm really pleased with where we are."

• The Clarets boss feels they are coming up against a "colossus" of a team in Manchester City: "We understand that. At times we will have to suffer, but we will adopt a confidence and a belief that we can show the best version of ourselves and hopefully cause them problems."

• On the impact of Kyle Walker since he joined: "He has been massive for us because of his experience and his quality. We've all seen his quality in a real short period of time. The biggest compliment I can pay to him is his reaction to the different environment and different way of playing here."

• He added: "When bringing him to Turf Moor, I had absolutely no doubt that he would embrace every bit of it - and he has done that. I've never seen frustration in him - instead, I've seen a positive mindset."

• On if playing three at the back has become plan A for the side: "Fair to say it has been our main structure this year. In saying that, we have been pretty flexible. Sometimes we have had different personnel and been more defensive, other times we have been looser. But we have done an extreme amount of work over pre-season in different variations of main structure."

• Parker called City boss Pep Guardiola "a genius of a coach" and said no-one in the room would "argue" about him changing his team's style against Arsenal: "Fundamentally, we all try to see what players have we got in this moment and what is working. What you see best in that moment is how you operate."

Listen to live commentary of Man City v Burnley on BBC Radio Lancashire (95.5FM) at 15:00 on Saturday

Catch up on all of Thursday's Premier League news conferences and the rest of the day's football news