Crystal Palace manager Pierre Sage conceded that his side's belief drained away once Manchester City extended their lead to 3-1, as the Eagles suffered a 4-1 defeat at home.
The result leaves Palace to reflect on a difficult afternoon against one of the Premier League's traditional heavyweights, with City proving too clinical and composed once they established control of the contest.
Speaking after the final whistle, Sage was candid in his assessment of how the match slipped away from his team. "At 3-1, we lost hope," Sage said, pinpointing the moment when City's third goal effectively ended any realistic hope of a Palace comeback.
The manager's comments suggest that Palace had shown enough in the earlier stages to believe a positive result was possible, only for City's quality to eventually tell as the game wore on. Once City moved two goals clear for the first time, the psychological blow appeared significant enough to change the complexion of the match entirely, with Palace unable to muster a sustained response before conceding a fourth.
For Sage, the challenge now will be to help his players quickly move past the disappointment and refocus on upcoming fixtures. Heavy defeats against elite opposition can test the resilience of a squad, and how Palace respond in training and in their next match will offer a clearer picture of the mentality within the camp.
Manchester City, by contrast, will take confidence from a performance that underlined their ability to seize control of matches against sides sitting outside the traditional top bracket of the division. Building a two-goal cushion and then managing the game to a comfortable conclusion is exactly the kind of professional display that title-chasing sides need to produce consistently throughout a long season.
While the scoreline offers a clear indication of City's dominance on the day, Sage's remarks hint that the match was not entirely one-sided from the outset, with Palace at least competitive enough in the opening exchanges to keep the score respectable before the turning point at 3-1. It was after that moment, according to the manager, that any realistic hope of salvaging something from the game disappeared.
Attention will now turn to how Palace regroup. Defeats of this magnitude against top-six opposition are not uncommon across the season, but managers are typically judged on the reaction that follows. Sage will be eager to see his squad bounce back with a more resilient and composed display in their next outing, using the lessons learned from City's ruthless second-half surge as motivation.
For now, though, the headline from Selhurst Park is a chastening 4-1 loss, one that Sage has attributed in part to a collapse in belief once the game reached its decisive juncture. The Frenchman's honesty in acknowledging that moment will likely be viewed as a positive sign that he understands exactly what went wrong, even if the result itself makes for grim reading among Palace supporters.
Based on reporting from BBC Sport.