Nigel de Jong, Adam Johnson and Edin Dzeko looked on from the stands but there was a first outing of July for Kun Aguero who teamed up with countryman Carlos Tevez in a two-pronged attack.
Tevez shone brightest in the opening quarter, fizzing a 15-yard effort narrowly wide of the target and setting up teenager Marcos Lopes for a snap shot from inside the box that was blocked.
But just like Friday’s defeat against Al Hilal the Blues couldn’t find the killer pass or pace out wide to undo well drilled opponents. There was lots of possession but not much in the way of penetration.
Roberto Mancini took Aguero off at half time – the Argentine who scored the final goal of the title winning campaign was having his first outing of the summer – but left the rest of his senior players on a pitch that was cut up after an American football match at the weekend.
Yaya Toure was the night’s most eye-catching City player and he produced the pass of the contest in the 66th minute when he sent substitute Vlad Weiss through the middle.
Weiss produced a fabulous looking chip but Fromlowitz in the Dynamo goal back-pedalled more quickly than Bradley Wiggins and tipped the effort around the post.
Subasic went close to settling the match via an own goal with a header late in the second half but luckily for him and Dresden it inched wide of the post and the resulting corner was cleared.
Mancini then went on a replacement-fest and swapped the rest of the team. He even subbed a substitute (Jelavic) as the pattern of the game became disjointed and both sides resigned themselves to a draw in front of 4615 fans.
The Blues will at least be hoping to get on the score sheet on Friday against Turkish side Besiktas, a game that kicks-off at 6.30pm CET.
City: Pantilimon (Johansen 74mins), Zabaleta (Elabdellaoui 74), Kolo Toure (Boyata 86), Savic (Mancini 86), Kompany (Rekik 68) Biton (Evans 86), Yaya Toure (Razak 70), Lopes (Weiss 62), Kolarov (Helan 74), Tevez (Scapuzzi 74) and Aguero (Jelavic 46, Bunn 86)
Dresden (first half): Kirsten, Savic, Gueye, Bregerie, Trojan, Pote, Losilla, Papadopoulus, Koz, Solga, Schuppan
