Palace was both at the time and in hindsight the final nail in our league season. I think you can also look at the FA Cup exit, in hindsight, as some sort of turning point in our form. Its weird because I for one wasn't as bothered at the time but it looks like it did get to the players in some way.
Another thing that is becoming apparent is that City/Arsenal aren't dropping anywhere near the amount of points people were predicting in this thread with 8-9 games left.
Arsenal just came through their worst week of the season unscathed and with Bournemouth, United and Everton left look very likely to win their last 3.
City are doing the thing that we have not been able to do it feels a single time all season - score early, control a game, and get a second goal early enough to then relax for the final quarter of a game. It feels like win or lose we had to go helter-skelter every single match of the season.
I don't really understand how one cup game can influence the rest of your season unless your players have really poor mentalities but ours proved they don't by coming back from a goal down so many times or by winning tough games near the end of the game.
For me, there's more to it than just losing that game. We've exited cups before and still looked good in the remaining league games.
I agree that anyone saying City will lose games in their run in is mainly optimism. They just don't lose game when they are in position to win the title and they couldn't have hand picked their run in any better than they've got it.
I knew Arsenal would slip up and they did to Villa (thought it might be the Spurs game).
Both teams will win out from here.
If we had won all ours we'd have finished 2nd still IMO. I just don't think winning our games affects City. They are a machine and only have their slips early on in seasons mainly where they have more than enough time to come back.