In real-time, I didn't think it was a penalty. However, the more and more I see it, I definitely think it is one. Hojlund has been taken down completely and there's no attempt to play the ball. I honestly don't know how a referee can look at that type of 'challenge' and agree that it's ok and legal within the laws of the game.
Decisions and goals change games. It's at a crucial point in the game and could have swung the ending result as the pattern for the rest of the game would have been affected had we then gone on to score that penalty. This is the bit that I don't think referees grasp when they don't give key decisions or make incorrect calls. It's never just an incident in isolation. It actually does have repercussions for the rest of the game.
Had the referee given it, then I don't think VAR would have overturned it. It's baffling, tbh. I hate the randomness of these decisions. City probably get that penalty at the Etihad.