On an artificial pitch in freezing Norwegian temperatures and on the back of Saturday‘s Manchester Derby defeat, this game had a banana skin feel to it for City.
Smarting from their defeat to United, City started brightly and on the offensive, creating a gilt-edged opportunity inside the opening 10 minutes when the unmarked Max Alleyne incredibly headed Phil Foden’s corner over from six yards.
It was a miss that ultimately proved costly, as against the run of play, Glimt took a shock lead. Ole Didrik Blomberg proved to be influential to the opener, standing up an inch-perfect cross, which Kasper Høgh powered in at the far post.
Visibly shell-shocked by falling behind, City crumbled and fell two behind just moments later. It was the same duo who combined once more, with Blomberg ghosting in behind and squaring to afford Høgh the simple task of finding the bottom corner.
City’s struggles were perhaps best encapsulated shortly before HT when a deep corner was kept alive by Rodri at the far post, and when the ball seemingly landed favourably for Erling Haaland, the Norwegian was on his heels, missing a glorious chance to halve the deficit before the break.
Guardiola surprisingly decided against making changes at the break, and it looked to be a fatal decision when the hosts had the ball in the net for the third time soon after the restart.
It was Håkon Evjen who turned the ball home, but he did so from an offside position, taking the ball away from the onside Høgh, who was on a hat-trick and destined to score behind him.
Incredibly, that was nothing more than a reprieve for City, who soon found themselves three down when a stunning solo strike from Jens Petter Hauge nestled in the top corner.
City at least managed to snatch an instant response through Rayan Cherki, but their task was complicated further when Rodri was dismissed for two yellow cards in the space of 58 seconds just moments later.
A frantic period continued as Hauge struck the crossbar, shortly before Høgh was again denied his hat-trick goal by an offside flag. The task should’ve been straightforward from there on for the Norwegian side, and it proved to be that way as they were largely untroubled and could have added a fourth in stoppage time when Gianluigi Donnarumma denied Andreas Helmersen from a one-on-one position.
Nonetheless, three points fires Glimt firmly into play-off contention ahead of the final matchday. City, meanwhile, are now likely to head into matchday eight sitting outside of the top eight.
Flashscore Man of the Match: Kasper Høgh (FK Bødo/Glimt)
