At the Etihad on Tuesday, City once again failed to win a game they had led, this time blowing 1-0 and 2-1 advantages - the latter with just four minutes to play - to lose 3-2 to Real Madrid in the first leg of their Champions League play-off.
Tellingly, those strikes by Brahim Diaz and Jude Bellingham took City’s tally of goals conceded this season to 56, beyond last term’s tally of 54 already, in 21 fewer games.
There have perhaps been more spectacular turnarounds, like the 3-0 against Feyenoord that became a 3-3 draw in the final quarter-of-an-hour, or the 1-0 lead against Manchester United with two minutes to play that turned into a derby defeat.
City simply needed to concentrate and see the game through, with senses surely heightened by the sheer number of times they have failed to do exactly that in the last few months alone.
But given all that forewarning and the stakes at this novel, but perilous stage of the one competition that might yet rescue City’s campaign, this might just have been the most damning of the lot.
