"Now the season is about trying to do two things: not overestimating the big teams and not underestimating the small ones."
The full irony of Pep Guardiola's sensible warning to his squad was that it had been uttered last week before the away game in Basel in the Champions League, and on the eve of a disastrous FA Cup quarterfinal exit at League One Wigan Athletic.
City's slick showing in Switzerland gave no clues to the jamboree of misplaced passes and under-par performances to come at the DW. It looked for all the world like City had indeed underestimated their opponents. Here was Manchester City returning to their old ways, ways many thought they had seen the back of.
Wigan, limited but energetic, the side that had beaten City in the dismal FA Cup final of 2013, in Roberto Mancini's soggy goodbye. The same Wigan that had knocked Manuel Pellegrini's City out of the 2014 FA Cup at the Etihad in a quarterfinal littered with errors. The same Wigan that had used Emile Heskey as a battering ram in beating City 4-0 in 2006 and indeed the same Wigan that tumbledown City had met in two emotion-drenched playoff games to get out of the third tier of English football in 1999.
Less than 20 years ago, City and Wigan were playing as equals in the third tier. These days they meet as vastly different animals, but Wigan have once again furnished a win from City's dithering.
As if losing against this traditionally troublesome foe was not enough, Guardiola's City reminded us that there were many other facets of the old "Typical City" still alive and kicking just beneath the well-polished surface.
Claudio Bravo, already pencilled in to play against Arsenal in the Carabao Cup final this Sunday, once again faced one shot and conceded. Whether he could have done more with Will Grigg's shot is now irrelevant, but the doubts about the Chilean's ability to withstand substantially more action from Arsenal at Wembley remain.
City's defence, shambolic and nervy against Wigan, has long been highlighted as a weak area, but the statistics suggest a different story. Goals against are bettered only by Manchester United in the Premier League this season, and that by a single goal. Considering City have popped in almost 30 more than United at the other end, that is a fantastic defensive achievement.
However, the proof is often more easily detected by using one's eyes and here was evidence to the contrary. John Stones has not regained his composure on the ball since his injury and Aymeric Laporte was tested by a lively and well-muscled Wigan attack.
Kyle Walker and Fabian Delph both blotted their copybooks with critical errors. For Walker, backing off and then showing Griggs through the centre to find enough space to score, the error was fatal. For Delph, lunging in on Max Power with feet high in a climate where referees are suddenly being asked to pay closer attention to dangerous tackles, his decision was also a contributory factor to City's eventual demise.
Forced to rejig, City lost the lively Leroy Sane and had 45 minutes to play with a man less. Delph's early departure from the game also served as another reminder that the old City of flops has not left us altogether.
It had, after all, been Guardiola himself, who had asked for dangerous tackles to be clamped down upon. City players have been the high profile target of at least nine treacherous lunges this season, only one of which -- Sadio Mane's karate kick on Ederson back in early September -- had been properly punished with a red card.
The delicious irony then, when Anthony Taylor re-pocketed his yellow card under pressure from a howling group of Wigan players and upgraded it to red. Delph's lunge was dangerous, even if it did take the ball, but that the clamp-down was to begin with City players was not quite what had been expected.
Wigan's one shot on goal did not come close to matching City's 29, nor did City's 83 percent possession tell much of a story on this occasion. They had huffed and puffed and not come close to blowing any houses down.
Now, if doubts are not to set in, Guardiola requires a response from his players. Jittery City fans, with one eye permanently fixed on any nascent signs that they are getting their old club back again, will also want to see something reassuring against Arsenal, while Arsene Wenger will be telling his men that there is nothing to fear.
Just when everyone thought it was safe to come out from behind the curtains, City have delivered a timely reminder of who they are.