BRENT A GOB: This week, Harry Brent's raging about Manchester City's decision to refund their fans after losing to Bodo/Glimt - and at those who thought Dominik Szoboszlai's goal against Bournemouth was a free kick
10:43, 30 Jan 2026
Harry Brent AI
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Our man Harry Brent is fuming in his latest column
Manchester City handed their fans ticket refunds after losing to Bodo/Glimt last week – which is the dumbest, most unnecessary thing they've done since buying Kalvin Phillips.
It's called being a supporter . The clue is in the friggin' word. The match result, ultimately, shouldn't matter. It's like family, or deciding to sign for Tottenham – if success is a deal-breaker then you've fundamentally misunderstood the arrangement.
I get it, City were Liverpool's title defence-levels of rubbish. It was the sort of pitiful performance that would make even West Ham blush. But plenty of those fans will have lived through the Division 2 trenches, the 8-1 defeat to Middlesbrough and the brief, but haunting, era of Valeri Bojinov.
Erling Haaland, Omar Marmoush, Nico O'Reilly and Pep Guardiola acknowledge the fans after the game
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Man City were humiliated against Bodo/Glimt, but that doesn't excuse their ticket refund(Image: Getty Images)
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If they can't handle an away defeat in the Champions League then they're as inexcusably fragile as a Chelsea manager's contract.
We keep banging on about how fans shouldn't be treated like customers, so why does this nonsense get the sort of free pass – and even the baffling admiration – that Jack Grealish enjoys despite being a £100million flop?
Supporting your team isn't like buying a cheeseburger. Quality shouldn't be required to retain your loyalty, otherwise you're not a fan, you're a glory-hunting halfwit. Granted, I'd describe about 90% of City's modern fans as glory-hunting halfwits, but the point still stands.
Refunding the tickets is a nice gesture – but like Brooklyn Beckham on Instagram, it sends a damning message. It suggests a bad defeat is a consumer rights issue, not a footballing one and that fans are entitled customers, not supporters who are supposed to endure the good with the bad.
Kasper Hogh of Bodo/Glimt scores vs Man City
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City lost the game 3-1(Image: Getty Images)
And besides, nice though it may have been, the gesture is about as empty as the space between Cole Palmer's ears. City have spent over £250m on new players this season - but bravo lads, you've scraped together about £10k to reimburse the fans and give yourselves a round of applause.
If you actually cared, why not pay for flights and hotels too? Why not slash ticket prices across the board? Hell, make away travel free. Do something genuinely radical instead of this PR-approved head pat.
But they won't. Because this isn't about fans, loyalty or respect. It's about optics. A neat, low-cost act of "kindness" that doesn't require any real sacrifice.
Man City match ticket
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Man City refunded match tickets for every fan who attended the game in Norway(Image: Getty Images)
Szob-standard logic
Let's get one thing crystal clear before I lose my rag: Dominik Szoboszlai's goal against Bournemouth on Saturday was not a free kick.
It was a free kick in the same way that Chelsea are "world champions" – a fantasy peddled by people with a looser grip on reality than Eni Aluko with her claims about Ian Wright.
If you missed it, here's what actually happened: Mo Salah ran over the ball and cheekily backheeled it into Szoboszlai's path, giving the Hungarian an angle to bend his shot around the wall.
Dominik Szoboszlai of Liverpool scores vs Bournemouth
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Dominik Szoboszlai's goal against Bournemouth was misidentified as a free kick(Image: Getty Images)
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Salah was even officially credited with an assist – and you usually don't get credit for not touching the ball… unless, of course, you're Cristiano Ronaldo trying to claim that Uruguay goal at the 2022 World Cup. Remember that? The gap between his head and the ball was wider than his ego, yet he still launched a national campaign to claim it.
But that didn't stop respected broadcasters and a legion of Twitter nincompoops from hailing Szoboszlai's strike as a fabulous "free kick goal". No. Wrong. More questionable than Paul Scholes biting his daughter's toenails.
Call me a pedantic bore if you must, but I cannot fathom how anyone who claims to love football could watch that and reach such a conclusion. It's like living through Liz Truss's 'mini budget' and coming out thinking she's a misunderstood economic genius – utterly bonkers.