Andros Townsend’s goal of the season contender helped Crystal Palace beat Manchester City away from home for the first time in 28 years.

His sensational strike came minutes after Jeffrey Schlupp cancelled out Ilkay Gundogan’s opener and was followed up by captain Luka Milivojevic’s penalty.

Despite substitute Kevin de Bruyne scoring late on, the Eagles held on for all three points in a thrilling 3-2 victory at the Etihad Stadium.

Here are five things we learned…

READ: Townsend: City wonder goal was 'definitely cleanest strike of my career'

What. A. Goal

Townsend will only get so many goals like that in his career and the 27-year-old will be delighted to have grabbed that against a team like City.

He described it as “definitely the cleanest strike of his career” and the defending Premier League champions as “the team of our generation”.

It wasn’t the winning goal but it was a goal worthy of winning any game – and it should not come as a surprise if it wins goal of the season come May.

52 minutes of delirium – then 38 minutes of panic

Hardly anyone could believe the visitors had taken a 3-1 lead against a team that had swept all before it when playing at home.

City had won all nine of its games at the Etihad going into the clash with Palace where they were expected to deliver yet another dominant win.

When Milivojevic rolled his penalty home on 52 minutes, Palace were forced to contain an unstoppable onslaught of attacks – and soon their resistance was broken – but that must have been some of the longest 30 minutes of those players’ lives.

Palace’s best win this season by far – and it’ll be hard to beat

What could come close to this would be if Palace go to Liverpool in January and topple the now-league leaders at Anfield.

The Eagles have history with the Reds – pulling off an incredible 3-3 draw at Selhurst Park back in 2014 which would be later dubbed “Crystanbul”.

If that isn’t achieved then it’d be safe to say beating City on their own patch will rank as the best all season.

READ: Where Hodgson ranks Palace's shock Man City win in his career

But don’t get carried away…

There were many (many) positives to take away from that game for Roy Hodgson’s men, however, after all, it is just three points as far as the table is concerned.

Cardiff City are still reeling from their 5-1 drubbing by City’s rivals Manchester United, who are under new management with Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.

Defeat at home on Boxing Day will arguably render a lot of those positives redundant – so execution will be paramount to another three points on December 26.

Luka looks like he’s on thin ice

In his post-match press conference, Hodgson revealed it was a “risk” to play Milivojevic in the City win.

The skipper is already on four yellow cards, so a booking against Cardiff would rule him out of Palace’s final game of 2018 against Chelsea.

He’ll need to remain disciplined and ensure he doesn’t get himself in trouble, otherwise it could spell problems for Palace in a game they have a lot to gain from.