Pep Guardiola says Aymeric Laporte's red card was a borderline decision - but ended up inflicting a costly defeat on his Manchester City side.
The Blues boss had no real beef with Andre Marriner's decision to send off the Spain defender at the end of the first half, after he appeared to haul down Crystal Palace attacker Wilfried Zaha.
Marriner decided Laporte was the last defender, and he got a red for denying a goalscoring opportunity - ruling him out of next week's Manchester derby - and VAR backed him up.
City hit back well in the second half, but had what appeared to be a Gabriel Jesus equaliser ruled out for a marginal offside against Phil Foden in the build-up.
"It could be a yellow card or red card, depends on decision of the boss, the referee," said Guardiola.
"The goal disallowed I didn’t see it but imagine the line said offside but we didn’t lose for that. Against Brighton the line said (their goal) was offside but that stood. We conceded the first goal and after we worked really well but after played 10 against 11.
"We need to do everything right but the players showed character. Unfortunately it went wrong in many many things."
City actually played better, and created more chances when they were a man down, and Guardiola gave Palace credit for the way they set up.
"We conceded the goal early on so how many chances they had? The goal and no more. It is quite similar to the last seasons when Crystal Palace came here under Roy Hodgson, lost one and drew one.
"The keeper took the momentum and then long balls and they defended really well with solidarity and defend the gaps and block the shots.
"We didn’t have many chances in the first half but we had enough to score. At the end the counter-attack anything can happen."
