There have been many occasions about the nine years of Pep Guardiola in England, which time with him ran away by one of the corridors along the tunnel of the Etihad Stadium.
The Manchester City manager has held a few long debriefs with the opposition, against the walls with white bricks.
Oliver Glasner's was not a marathon last month, in the aftermath of a 5-2 city win, but the palace boss sent a message to his illustrious counterpart.
City had played a 4-2-2-2 formation in beating Palace, coming back from two goals. It was the first time that Guardiola had tried it, a system that had inflamed some life in their run-in.
Glasner quietly suggested Guardiola that if he were comparable in a hypothetical FA Cup – final – the last four on this point would not have even been played – Palace would sort it out.
They may have called those words in the ears of Guardiola last week. Suggestions from the club were that the manager had planned something 'very tactically' for this occasion and that they were not wrong.
Although there was murmur of a 2-2-2-4, City often looked like a 3-5-2, an alien formation for this team, in a liquid system in which Bernardo Silva only held midfield in the absence of the wounded Mateo Kovacic.
Silva's best performance in the last 18 months have come to that position, but never alone. With a tired Kevin De Bruyne in the neighborhood, Silva was left behind to fight fires with only one snake. The signing of £ 50 million January, Nico Gonzalez, was like an unused replacement.
Towards the end, the city – which will end the season, begged for a final sprinkling of De Bruyne Magic from the Quarterback area that never came. More Trudge than Twinkle. To be honest, the Belgian should have been saved earlier in the play.
An anonymous donation of € 5,000 by Erling Haaland helped to finance City supporters a huge banner in honor of De Bruyne Pre-Match, but none of them did not wear much else on the occasion.
Haaland donated something else, a penalty to Omar Marmoush, after he had missed three of his seven this season. Guardiola said they have sorted it on the field.
The midfield decisions, without a recognized No. 6, will evoke painful memories of the final of the Champions League 2021 and the choice of Guardiola not to choose Fernandinho in the defeat by Chelsea. That day City thought they would have the whole ball, so they went with an extra passerby, and for this they wanted to pin the broad men of Palace – what they did.
And despite the fact that Ebereechi Eze scored what the winner turned out to be, City was more than decent in the first half and missed a large number of opportunities. If they enter, as they should have done, we will discuss the ingenuity of Guardiola.
“We made a lot with 11 (palace) players in their box,” Guardiola said. “I'm not saying it's easy. We have learned for many years that we need good crosses, good people in the box. That's why we had the right wing players. The game plan did not work because we did not win, but I had nothing. In Southampton (last week) I had a bad, bad feeling but not today. '
You could see that it was all new when Haaland was seen to trot for instructions during a break in the game, hand in hand with his boss, who had started again long after the game was implemented.
The first half explained, second half less, the city is becoming more and more erratic. Claudio Echeverri, the teenager Argentinian who joined River Plate in January, came for his debut – never been to the couch – the call of a scrambled eggs appeared.
“He had three chances,” said Guardiola. “I saw in training; He moves really well in the small spaces. I thought he could find something in the last minutes. '
And what should Rico Lewis and James McATee think after neither of them made the team? Lewis scored in the semi -final against Nottingham Forest and was fantastic in the central midfield; McATEE scored last month in beating Palace. Both considered excess.
City, who had looked home and dry in the race for Champions League qualification, now have a week to bounce back and get it right – four points of Bournemouth on Tuesday and then Fulham the required minimum.