The 2026–27 season brings the first Manchester derby to Old Trafford on September 13, with both clubs in a different position to a year ago. Erik ten Hag remains in charge at United following a transformative stretch, while Pep Guardiola continues to lead City into another title defence. All of this is shaping the Man United vs Man City odds ahead of kick-off.
In this article, we look at the forwards who have scored the most Manchester derby goals in history, and at what each of them brought to the fixture.
Wayne Rooney
Rooney is the joint-leading scorer in Manchester derby history across all competitions alongside Sergio Agüero, with 11 goals against City. Eight of those came in the Premier League, which keeps him level with Agüero and Haaland at the top of the league-era list.
His most celebrated goal in the fixture is the overhead kick at Old Trafford in February 2011, which settled a 2-1 win. What sat behind that moment was volume. He scored in the derby as a central striker and from deeper positions, across more than a decade of United sides that varied hugely in strength.
Joe Hayes
Hayes sits close behind on 10 goals, all of them for City. Nine came in league football and one in the FA Cup, at a time when the fixture was played almost entirely in the First Division.
His era covered some of City’s heaviest derby wins, including the 5-0 victory at Old Trafford in 1955 and the FA Cup fourth round tie that same year, when City beat United 2-0 on their way to the final.
Francis Lee
Lee matched Hayes on 10, with nine in the league and one in the EFL Cup. He played in some of the most talked about derbies of the early 1970s, including the 3-3 draw in which he accused George Best of diving and threw himself to the floor to make the point to the referee.
Lee was also involved in the most quoted derby moment of all. It was his pass that Denis Law back-heeled past Alex Stepney at Old Trafford in April 1974, in what proved to be Law’s final appearance in league football.
Sergio Agüero
Agüero reached 11 derby goals across all competitions—eight in the Premier League, two in the FA Cup, and one in the League Cup—making him the joint-top scorer in derby history. He joined City in 2011 and left 10 years later as the club record scorer with 260 goals in all competitions, having won five league titles along the way.
His derby goals followed the pattern of his City career, arriving in tight matches where one moment in the penalty area settled the outcome. City spent several seasons after his 2021 departure without a striker of that profile, which is part of why Haaland made such an immediate difference to their attack in 2022.
Bobby Charlton
Charlton scored nine derby goals across his career, made up of seven in the league and two in the domestic cups. He also made 27 derby appearances, more than any outfield player bar Ryan Giggs, across a United career that ran from the 1950s into the 1970s.
Charlton played in derbies on either side of the Munich air disaster and through the sides Sir Matt Busby rebuilt afterwards, which is why his total sits so close to the top despite spanning such a long period.
The name closest to the record now
Erling Haaland is the highest-scoring active player in the Premier League era of the fixture on eight goals, putting him level with Wayne Rooney and Sergio Agüero in Premier League derby goals after scoring twice in City’s 3-0 win at the Etihad in September 2025.
City sit near the front of the Premier League winner odds after last season’s runners-up finish, and Haaland needs three more overall derby goals to draw level with Rooney and Agüero (11) at the very top of the all-time, all-competitions list.
