Pep Guardiola’s warnings weren’t enough.

They should have been, and Manchester City should have been more than good enough to beat a depleted Crystal Palace side. But these are strange times at the Etihad, with the team that never let leads slip slowly becoming awkwardly bad at one of their biggest strengths.

 

The Premier League champions added Rico Lewis’s second-half strike to Jack Grealish’s opener to take complete control of a game they would have sailed through in years past. Instead, they imploded in the final 20 minutes with Phil Foden undoing his earlier good work to give away a stoppage time penalty to allow Michael Olise to complete an unlikely comeback after Jean-Phillipe Mateta had halved the deficit.

The result could not have been better for an injury-ravaged Palace, who set their stall out early with Bernardo Silva protesting about timewasting in just the third minute. Shorn of their full-strength side and losing Joel Ward in the first half, the visitors planned to make things as difficult as possible for City to play with any fluency.

Tactics ranged from taking an age over goal-kicks to deciding that balls placed closer to the fans were better to take throw-ins than the ones conveniently in their hands. It had some success too, with the home team dominating possession yet unable to convert that into goals as they missed the injured Erling Haaland for a third successive game.

City were, though, giving themselves every chance of winning by utilising the ball boys whenever it was their throw. Ball swaps and speedy responses to calls meant those running the touchline were able to get the game restarted at their pace despite Palace attempts to slow it down.

That gave Foden more time to work his magic. Having settled the debate over whether he could keep a place in Guardiola’s side, the next question is whether he is best centrally or out wide. As well as Gareth Southgate’s doubts, Guardiola has voiced concerns before about Foden’s ability to play at tempos other than full throttle.

The departure of Ilkay Gundogan and injury to Kevin De Bruyne has given the England man the opportunity, and with Julian Alvarez pushed further up in Haaland’s absence Foden has been given license to be the chief schemer in City’s attack. As at Luton, it is a role the 23-year-old relished as he showed the patience and quality to slice Palace apart.

One delicate pass at the right time was all it took midway through the first half for Grealish to slide City into the lead and dent the Palace gameplan. For Grealish, goals in three consecutive Premier League games for the first time in his career should go some way to silencing the silly criticism he has had this season.

It was a deserved lead, not just for City’s quality in creating the chance but for their commitment to every detail of the game. From flagging timewasting to the build-up from Ruben Dias to utilising the ballboys, the Premier League champions put effort into every aspect that they could control and earned a scoreboard lead through that.

Yet a team without a clean sheet in seven games would show their vulnerability and, after initially hesitating when Mateta hared towards the box, Ederson then committed too late and got the man rather than the ball. It was only the fact that Mateta’s touch had taken him away from the goal that meant the card for the Brazilian was yellow rather than red.

Unlike in recent weeks, City seemed to have reduced their errors. Having been challenged when 1-0 down at Luton to act like a big team rather than feeling sorry for themselves, the response to seeing an Alvarez free-kick ruled out for offside early in the second half was for Lewis to score his first Premier League goal minutes later.

It could have been seconds later but for lengthy VAR checks that were a plague on the flow of the game. The check for Grealish’s goal was more than three minutes and felt particularly long given the plans to make that semi-automated.

But having assumed full control of the game City once again let it slip. A simple ball over the top for Jeffrey Schlupp wasn’t tracked by Kyle Walker or cut out by Dias, and Mateta beat Ake to slide in.

Guardiola had been muttering to himself about City’s decision-making minutes before that and the goal did little to improve his mood, yet there wasn’t movement from the bench with the starting XI still backed to see out the result. It looked like it would pay off, only for Foden to go in late on Mateta in injury time to allow Olise to equalise from the spot.

After an indifferent set of results over the last month, this should have been an important win. The victories over Luton and Crvena Zvezda have lifted the mood at the Etihad and given credence to the belief in the squad that they weren’t playing badly.

But this draw eats away at the idea that this year’s team have what it takes to go all the way after another missed opportunity meaning it is one win in six and on a day where the there teams above them in the league were not in action. City could have jumped above Aston Villa and Arsenal into second and a point behind Liverpool, cementing the impression that they are not ready to be left behind in the title race despite missing the next round of fixtures while they are in Saudi Arabia.

Dropping points, and dropping points in such disappointing fashion instead highlights the shortcomings of the side ahead of a week where they could now fall further behind their rivals. The Club World Cup offers an early opportunity for glory, yet the hunger to win the Premier League has not gone away.

Guardiola had warned his players about Palace before the game, and then repeatedly during it. Until the team appears fully on the same page as the manager, it is difficult to see them returning to their best.