Manchester derby head-to-head: the full record
Few fixtures in English football carry the significance of a Manchester derby. What started as a scrap between two works teams in Victorian Manchester now stops the city twice a season.The 199th competitive meeting arrives at Old Trafford on Saturday 12 September 2026, and as ever, the archive matters: form, venue and historical patterns all feed into how Man United vs Man City odds are framed long before anyone kicks a ball.
Two clubs, four names, one rivalry
Neither side existed under its current badge when they first met. On 12 November 1881, Newton Heath LYR, a team drawn from the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway's carriage works, beat St Mark's (West Gorton) 3-0. It was a friendly played in front of a modest crowd, and nothing about it suggested the fixture would still be dominating headlines 145 years later.Both clubs then reinvented themselves. St Mark's became Ardwick AFC in 1887 and, after the club collapsed financially, re-formed as Manchester City in 1894. Newton Heath went through its own near-death experience before a group of local businessmen stepped in, and the club was renamed Manchester United in 1902. Two struggling amateur outfits had turned themselves into professional clubs with citywide ambitions, and, inevitably, a problem with each other.
Who leads the all-time record?
Across 198 competitive fixtures, Manchester United hold the advantage with 81 wins to City's 62, with 55 draws. That lead is largely a product of the 20th century, when United's European Cup sides and then Sir Alex Ferguson's dynasty coincided with long stretches of City instability.Narrow the lens and the picture tightens considerably. In 58 Premier League derbies, United lead 27-21 with 10 draws, a six-win gap rather than a 19-win one. Restrict it further to the last decade, and City are comfortably ahead. It's one of the reasons the fixture reads so differently depending on which number you reach for.
Phil Foden scored a hat-trick in the 6-3 win 2022
Record scorelines
The highest-scoring derby ever played came on 2 October 2022, when City won 6-3 at the Etihad. Erling Haaland and Phil Foden both completed hat-tricks, the first time two players from the same team had done so in a Premier League match. Nine goals remains the benchmark.For sheer margin, City own the two heaviest wins: 6-1 at Old Trafford in January 1926, and the same scoreline in the same stadium in October 2011. United's biggest is the 5-0 hammering of November 1994.
At the other extreme, goalless derbies are genuinely rare. The most recent came on 6 April 2025 at Old Trafford, a flat, chance-light afternoon that doubled as Kevin De Bruyne's derby farewell. Before that, you had to go back to December 2020.
Top derby scorers
Wayne Rooney remains the all-time leader with 11 derby goals, ahead of City pair Joe Hayes and Francis Lee on 10 apiece, with Bobby Charlton and Sergio Agüero on nine. Haaland has hauled himself level with Rooney and Aguero on eight goals in Premier League derbies specifically, and he isn't finished. Ryan Giggs holds the appearance record at 37.Where the fixture stands in September 2026
Last season split neatly down the middle: City won 3-0 at the Etihad in September 2025 with Haaland scoring twice, before United's high press produced a 2-0 win at Old Trafford in January 2026 that ended a 13-match unbeaten run for their neighbours.Neither club finished top. Arsenal took the title on 85 points, City finished second on 78, United third on 71, though City compensated with both domestic cups. Both sides also arrive at this derby under new management: Michael Carrick is into his first full Premier League campaign with United, while Enzo Maresca has replaced Pep Guardiola at City after a decade of continuity. That combination of two managers still shaping their squads, and a fixture that has produced a 6-3, a 0-0 and everything in between in recent years is exactly why derby history gets picked over so thoroughly in coverage of the Premier League odds.