After the first weekend of the season, City took an early lead in the Premier League title battle against Liverpool as Erlin Haaland's debut gave the champions a 2-0 win at West Ham United.
Liverpool were beaten 2-2 by promoted Mafulham the day before, but can also take comfort in the influence of their new striker Darwin Nunez, who came off the bench to save his side a point.
Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham have all triumphed in the top four, but United lost 2-1 at home to Brighton in their first game under Eric S.Haag last season, with a dismal result.
Agence France-Presse Sport looks at three talking points for the premier league season opening game.
Haaland is worth hyping
City slowly got through their time after missing Harry Kane as Sergio Aguero's successor last summer and paid off by beating competition across Europe to sign Haaland from Borussia Dortmund for £51 million ($63 million).
Adding one of the world's most feared strikers to a back-to-back championship-winning team without a natural shooter proved to be a frightening prospect, as it promised in the opening weekend.
In last season's penultimate game, City nearly conceded the title and West Ham barely played the ball in the first half.
Haaland's arrival was aimed at erasing the days when City failed to show dominance on the scoreboard, which he delivered immediately as his acceleration lured Alphonse Areola to commit a penalty for the opening goal.
Penalty scoring is another problem the Norwegian prodigy can solve for his new club as he drove a penalty after half-time and showed off his pace again to snatch Kevin de Bruyne's pass to kill the game.
"Could have been more," Haaland warned ominously of other title contenders.
The troubles of the Ten Witches begin
Any hope that the new manager would immediately herald a turnaround in Manchester United's fortunes was washed away in the 45 minutes of the Age of Ten Witches at Old Trafford.
At the end of ralf Rangnick's ill-fated guard period, which won 4-0 at the end of last season, Brighton failed to deal with the humiliation they inflicted on the Red Devils.
But thanks to Pascal Gross's doubles, the Seagulls did win their first win at Old Trafford.
After promising some pre-season performances, United, led by the Dutchman, is little different from the chaotic situation of sixth place in the Premier League last season.
United's open midfield hasn't helped them defensively messy, while they've become sluggish up front without a natural striker.
Cristiano Ronaldo began sitting on the bench due to a lack of pre-season training as the five-time Ballon d'Or winner tried to withdraw from Old Trafford.
"The way they played today, sixth is the highest result they can accomplish this season," said former Manchester United midfielder Paul Scholes.
Klopp happily scruffled Liverpool to be punished
Jurgen Klopp didn't try to hide Liverpool's unexpectedly bad start, as Fulham deserve at least a point when they return to the Premier League.
The Reds nearly won an unprecedented four-game winning streak last season in a 3-1 win over Manchester City to win the Community Shield, and a week ago, the Reds shared the same enthusiasm and desire.
Fast forward 7 days and Liverpool are complacent about Aleksandar Mitrovic's double punishment of the hosts.
Liverpool have twice lost to Manchester City by one point in the past four seasons, and Klopp knows his side won't be able to take the time to find their best if they want to keep up with the champions.
Klopp said: "I'm glad we lost two points and were punished. "I'd love to get three points, but honestly I wanted to play very well, but we didn't do that.
"Performance is failure – the result is not failure, but performance is failure, which is why we have to figure out what's going on."