It was more than just a simple plot revolving around the absence of Erling Haaland and, yet, by the time the match had played out to its unexciting end, it didn’t seem at all unfair to ponder if this game would have finished goalless and drab had Manchester City’s prolific striker not been strapped to the bench for the first time since joining the club.
A visibly struggling Man City were forced to play all, except for 33, minutes with 10 men after the first-half eviction of Sergio Gomez and the numerical advantage favoring Copenhagen, coupled with the absence of destroyer Haaland, the Danish club claimed a point few would have dared predict prior ot the game.
Remarkably, this would be the first time in 23 games – dating all the way back to the 0-0 draw against Atletico Madrid in the second leg of their Champions League quarter-final tie in April – that City had not scored and they looked discernibly blunt without their Nordic goal machine on the offensive.
The outcome could possibly have turned out differently had Riyad Mahrez not missed his 24th-minute penalty. City ended up expending much more energy in this game than Pep Guardiola would have liked ahead of Sunday’s trip to face Liverpool.
The first half was uncharacteristically chaotic for City – a stop-start affair littered with mistakes and dominated by VAR with referee Artur Dias having to approach the pitch-side monitor on three occasions to review what he kept missing in real time.
Ostensibly too City were somehow not incisive nor even great with 11 men as the gaping Haaland-sized vacuum in attack appeared to disrupt their usual rhythm going forward, with Kevin De Bruyne, in particular, seeming a little thrown off by his absence.
Copenhagen deserved all credit for getting their able men behind the ball and proved a far tougher nut to crack than the previous week, when they were brushed aside 5-0 at the Etihad. City’s task then progressively got harder once Gomez was shown a red card for a push on Hakon Arnar following a third VAR intervention of the game. This was when Mahrez’s penalty miss seven minutes early felt more costly.
The first 33 minutes were eventful for Mahrez, albeit not at all in a good way. Rodri thought he had given City an 11th-minute lead with a 25-yard wonder strike, only for the goal to be chalked off when Dias, checking the pitchside monitor for the first time, agreed with the VAR that Mahrez had handled the ball in the build-up.
Dias was subsequently reviewing the monitor again to penalise the Copenhagen defender Nicolai Boilesen for handball from a corner. Mahrez had scored a penalty against Copenhagen in Haaland’s absence last week, but was unable to repeat the feat this time, with Kamil Grabara’s save only deepening City fans’ thirst to see their top scorer back on the pitch.
Mahrez would not even get a chance to atone when called ashore before half-time.