When Brentford missed their first few chances, Thomas Frank showed his approval and encouragement with applause. But they kept missing them: At the end of the first half, he buried his head in his hands; When Yoane Wissa somehow shot into Nathan Aké and the goal was at his mercy, he was lying on the ground with 20 minutes left, his forehead pressed pleadingly into the turf. Maybe someone was listening.

Phil Foden had scored the opener moments earlier and added a second shortly after after Savinho’s shot was parried. Even though Brentford looked defeated at that moment, they didn’t feel it, and with one final swing the pendulum swung: three minutes later, Mads Roerslev’s volley down the middle found Wissa all alone on the edge of the six-yard box and fired the goal back and into Christian’s injury-time goal Nørgaard headed Keane Lewis-Potter’s right-wing cross just out of Stefan Ortega’s reach.

Still, Brentford were not content and it was only in the dying moments that Aké had to clear the goalline after Bryan Mbeumo’s shot to ensure Manchester City ended this brilliantly entertaining encounter with a point. It was the champions’ fourth league game unbeaten, but when the positive results come back that feeling of control and superiority is no longer there.

Pep Guardiola admitted afterwards that his squad lacked the “certain type of player” they needed as Brentford packed the penalty area in the closing moments, and that “our defensive midfielders don’t have the quality… no, they don’t have the skills, that type of players to defend “balls”. “I don’t complain at all to the players,” Guardiola said (although he certainly seemed to as they left the pitch at the end). “Of course we are sad because we were close to winning and didn’t win, but that happens sometimes. At 0-2 we could do a little better (but) they put six or seven players in the box and sometimes they are better. They had more players, they are bigger, they are stronger in their minds. So you have to understand it.”

A month ago Brentford were unbeaten here in all competitions, but while they may have lost their aura of invincibility with back-to-back league games against Nottingham Forest and Arsenal, they remain an exciting, frightening proposition at home and Liverpool will have seen a lot to suit them here Her visit on Saturday is causing concern. “The way we played, how brave we were, the aggression, our deep blocking, our counterattacks – I loved everything about our performance,” Frank said. “It’s not like we defended for 80 minutes and then came back in the last 10 minutes. I think this is the first time over 90 minutes that we’ve managed to be more or less level with one of the best teams in the world. ”

Despite their obvious quality, City didn’t often look like this here. Brentford started much stronger, giving City no time to settle in any area of ​​the pitch as they looked for gaps in attack, often on the right where Mbeumo constantly threatened Josko Gvardiol, or in front of Wissa. In the first 15 minutes, Wissa missed two chances and Mbeumo missed one, but Ortega turned his shot around the post.

City’s record with Kyle Walker in the team this season is particularly dismal, but there may have been moments when Guardiola regretted his absence. This may or may not be the end of the road for Walker at City, but he hasn’t even taken the path that led to the Gtech Community Stadium, which the 34-year-old has left out of the squad as he tries to engineer a move abroad and with the arrival of 19-year-old Palmeiras defender Vitor Reis, for whom a deal worth around £30 million has apparently been agreed, imminent.

It wasn’t until the middle of the first half that City woke up. Kevin De Bruyne found Matheus Nunes, who sprinted into space on the counterattack, but the Portuguese cut inside and into Nathan Collins.

Savinho led another break before firing a shot over the crossbar from the edge of the penalty area. The final 10 minutes of the half were played almost entirely in Brentford’s defensive third and ended with a first-time shot from De Bruyne, taken without pressure, that cleared the goal, the stands behind it and almost the roof above.

While both teams were dominant in the first half, they were yelling at each other the entire time in the second half. Nathan Collins headed a free-kick just wide, Savinho smashed a shot against the post, Erling Haaland sent a free header from eight meters straight at Mark Flekken and Gvardiol made an excellent last-ditch save from Wissa. And so it went from one end to the other until Foden flicked the ball from De Bruyne’s wonderful center into the far corner to open the scoring and bring the game to its mad, magnificent conclusion.