"So generous" was how Pep Guardiola described Cole Palmer after his Manchester City team came from a goal down to beat Chelsea on Saturday evening.

The truth is, however, it should have been a couple of goals that the champions needed to overturn. There was a moment - that looks even more crucial now in hindsight - not long after Noni Madueke opened the scoring following a mistake from City debutant Abdukodir Khusanov - where Palmer was leading a Blues surge, with Chelsea's No.20 charging forward with the ball, with Nicolas Jackson making a run into the box.

Palmer would have made this pass, a fairly simple one for a player of his standards, on countless occasions in his career. Roll it across the face of goal, let Jackson do the rest. Two-nil to Chelsea and the already hostile and restless City supporters inside the stadium grow even more frustrated. A real game-changer.

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"After that [the opening goal], Cole had the chance for 2-0 but he was so generous," Guardiola said of his former player post-match. "Normally in that situation, Cole is a machine. We were lucky they didn't score and we came back."

Shortly after the full-time whistle blew at the Etihad Stadium, Guardiola could be seen chatting away with Palmer on the pitch. While we were too far away to hear what was being said, the City boss may have expressed his gratitude to his former player for letting his team off the hook.

Enzo Maresca knew how significant of a moment it was, too. The Italian believes the conversations at the end of the game, which centred around the under-fire goalkeeper Robert Sanchez, would have been completely different if Chelsea had have capitalised on a nervy and lacklustre start from the hosts in Manchester.

"I think... I am completely sure, because of the mood and because of the moment, scoring the second one, the game would completely change," Maresca explained. "Unfortunately we didn't score the second one."

For the first 20-or-so minutes, there was a general feeling that City were there for the taking. A shadow of their former selves, the reigning champions looked extremely fragile and if Chelsea had have been more ruthless and smart about things, there is no question they would still be in the top four right now.

The Blues, however, have slumped down to sixth-place in the Premier League table given the defeat and results elsewhere going against the west Londoners. City have leapfrogged Chelsea, as have Newcastle United, who came from behind to win against bottom-of-the-league Southampton. High-flying Bournemouth are now level on points with the Blues, who are ahead on solely goals scored (45 compared to 41).

It simply was not good enough from Chelsea in the second-half and large parts of the first period. The Blues went a staggering 33 minutes without having a shot on goal in the second-half before Madueke's 91st-minute effort. Chelsea were barely creating anything; and if they did, there were not many clear-cut opportunities for the visitors.

It comes down to the minute details in football - especially at the very top level, against the very top teams. While City have not been a 'top team', so to speak, this season, they do still possess world-class quality within their XI. Erling Haaland is about as world-class as one can get and his clinical nature proved to be one of the differences in Manchester on Saturday.

"In these types of games, where the details make the most difference, most of the time, the difference is in the box," Maresca said. "They are being clinical with the chances they had and unfortunately we missed."

That isn't only attacking, though, it is in both boxes. Both of which, Chelsea were not good enough in on Saturday. While, ironically, the goal actually came from outside of the box, Sanchez was extremely poor for City's second of the game.

As per the xG Philosophy on X (formerly Twitter), the positioning of the goalkeeper turned an extremely low xG chance into a considerably higher one. It was 0.03xG but Sanchez rushing out of his box - being left in no man's land - saw it rise to 0.42xG. You don't give Haaland 0.42xG chances.

That was poor; extremely poor, in fact, and it has - rightfully so - been the main talking point coming out of the defeat for Chelsea. However, it is worth remembering the game would have been in a completely different state had Palmer picked out Jackson around 10 minutes in.