Fulham 0-2 Manchester City: Gundogan and Haaland seal Champions League berth

Manchester City clinched their place in next season’s Champions League with a 2-0 win over Fulham at Craven Cottage.

Ilkay Gundogan played his part in both goals, scoring a superb overhead kick to open the scoring before winning a second-half penalty.

Gundogan was caught by Sasa Lukic in the box, with Erling Haaland confidently converting from 12 yards, sending Bernd Leno the wrong way.

Fulham had pushed for an equaliser, with Harry Wilson going closest, but they were unable to mount another comeback to sign off at home.

Pep Guardiola’s side round off a disappointing season in third on 71 points, while Fulham missed out on the chance to finish in the top half, settling for 11th on 54 points.

City dominated before making the breakthrough after 21 minutes when Matheus Nunes’ chip was pushed in the air by Leno and Gundogan converted a sensational overhead kick off the underside of the crossbar

Harry Wilson was twice denied by Ederson as Fulham sought an equaliser, before Leno made an unorthodox stop with his face to deny Josko Gvardiol’s powerful header after the break.

Gundogan then cleverly turned away from Lukic, who kicked through him to give away a penalty, and Haaland coolly stepped up to slot his effort into the bottom-left corner and secure the three points and Champions League football.

FULL-TIME | A big final day win!

0-2 #ManCity | @okx pic.twitter.com/GuMUuylXds

— Manchester City (@ManCity) May 25, 2025

Data Debrief: City set new ground as Fulham record unwanted history

City have not had the sort of season they would have envisaged back in August but they now have now won 15 straight league meetings with Fulham, the outright longest winning run one side has recorded over another in the history of England’s top four tiers (overtaking their own previous best of 14 versus Bournemouth).

However, despite the victory, Pep Guardiola has seen his team finish outside of the top two (third) for only the second time in his 16 seasons as a top-flight manager, along with the 2016-17 Premier League campaign (also third).

For Ilkay Gundogan, this was his first Premier League goal since May 2023 when he scored twice against Everton and the German has now scored in each of his eight league campaigns with City.

Haaland of course controversially opted to not take a penalty as City lost the FA Cup final to Crystal Palace last weekend but since his first Premier League season in 2022-23, no player has netted more from the spot in the competition (17).