Despite being reduced to ten men late in the first half against the Eagles when Aymeric Laporte was given his marching orders, City were on top for the majority of Saturday’s Premier League fixture at the Etihad Stadium.
But we couldn’t transfer that dominance into goals, as strikes from Wilfried Zaha and Connor Gallagher were enough to earn the visitors a 2-0 victory.
Nonetheless, Guardiola insisted that an occasional setback is common over the course of a season, earmarking Wednesday’s Champions League Group A showdown with Brugge as the perfect opportunity to get back on course.
“Our standards as a team, individually and collectively, are so high,” the boss reflected in his post-match press conference.
“We know how difficult it is to maintain it – Kevin (De Bruyne), Riyad (Mahrez), Raheem (Sterling) - all the top players who have helped us to achieve what we achieved over the past four/five years.
“In seasons, there are highs, lows and big moments and it’s important to be strong here and positive.
“Next Wednesday is another challenge, another opportunity (to do that).”
It was a frustrating day at the office for City, who enjoyed 68% possession against Crystal Palace but were restricted to just three shots on target throughout proceedings.
And while Gabriel Jesus had the ball in the net on the hour, an offside in the build-up ensured Guardiola’s men drew a blank at the Etihad.
However, referencing our clinical performance away to Brighton last weekend, the City boss insisted our lack of goals against the Eagles was no cause for concern.
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He said: “We are able to score four or five in some games - against Brighton who are an exceptional team, they had conceded just five goals before we played them and we were able to score four.
“We are a team who are able to do it but against teams who defend deep sometimes it’s difficult to find the right moment to punish them.
“We created lots of chances against West Ham and conceded few and today it was the same again except for the five/ten minutes.
“We produced more but we have to score more goals, we knew it.”
