It takes a special type of luxury for a starting XI that cost £365million to be viewed as a selection more in line with the Carabao Cup than the Champions League.
It also takes a special kind of underperformance for those eleven internationals to convince Pep Guardiola to do something else he had done only once before at Manchester City: a triple half-time substitution because his side were trailing.
The referee had not even taken the whistle from his mouth before Guardiola was ordering Phil Foden and some of the other big names on the bench to go and prepare for premature deployment. That is how displeased he was with an opening 45 minutes in which City created just two real chances and were 1-0 down.
While the players stood in the tunnel waiting on the away side to emerge for the second half, a group huddled around Guardiola as he reeled off tactical instructions. He spoke with Phil Foden, Nico O’Reilly and Jeremy Doku, filling their head with enthusiastic messages, as Rico Lewis, Oscar Bobb and Rayan Ait-Nouri were sacrificed.
This was the 86th game that Man City have trailed at the break in Guardiola’s 552 games as City boss, but it was only the fourth time he has ever swapped three players at the halfway mark. The first occasion was during the final game of the 2019-20 season when City were 2-0 up against Norwich City. The second came when they were 3-0 up against Birmingham City in the FA Cup third round in 2021. These were generous moves to allow others to fill their boots.
The only example of his initial game plan going so badly that he had to switch more than a quarter of the team after 45 minutes came in January 2023 against Southampton in the quarter-final of the Carabao Cup. His side were 2-0 down at half-time and despite Kyle Walker, Sergio Gomes and Cole Palmer being replaced by Manuel Akanji, Nathan Ake and Kevin De Bruyne, it remained that way, and City’s chance to win a unique quadruple had vanished.
Nathan Jones has now been joined by Kasper Hjumland in the exclusive club of managers who have forced Guardiola into drastic rethinks. The Danish coach, who has done an impressive job undoing the chaos of Eric ten Haag’s short-lived reign since taking over at Leverkusen in September, argued that since the five substitutes rule was introduced it is often just as important who finishes the game as who starts it.
But not even the cavalry — O’Reilly, Foden and Doku were joined by Rayan Cherki and Erling Haaland in the 65th minute — could wake City from their collective slumber as they fell to a 2-0 defeat. It is their first home defeat in the group stage since they lost 2-1 loss to Lyon in 2018, ending a run of 23 games.
Guardiola rested many of his first-team stars on Tuesday evening (Carl Recine/Getty Images)
“This is a real final,” said Guardiola on Monday, emphasising how important it was for Man City to take maximum points against Leverkusen and Galatasaray if they were to secure a top eight finish in the Champions League.
So, he did exactly what anyone would do. He changed ten of the eleven who had started the last three Premier League games. Nico Gonzalez was the only survivor of a complete overhaul that saw James Trafford, Abdukodir Khusanov, John Stones, Nathan Ake, Ait-Nouri, Lewis, Tijjani Reijnders, Bobb, Savinho and Omar Marmoush all come in.
Six of them had played less than 550 minutes this season. The need for rotation was clear but so was the lack of confidence and cohesion. And it showed as Leverkusen repeatedly cut through a non-existent press and defended their penalty area without much discomfort until late in the game.
Guardiola had wanted his understudies to use their rare chance to “show off” but instead felt they played not to make mistakes. He used his post-match press conference to reason, at length, on why every individual player had been rested or given minutes. Why they could not sustain the load. Why they had earned his trust to be given an opportunity. He contemplated that he had maybe been too nice.
“I take responsibility but I like everyone to be involved,” he said.
“When you are a football player and don’t play for five, six, seven games it’s tough but maybe it was too much.”
It is not the first time Guardiola has experimented in Europe, but the timing of his decision to completely shuffle the team was even more surprising given Leeds United, with one win in their last seven Premier League games and a manager under severe pressure, are the visitors on Saturday.
Hjumland helpfully revealed that on average the rotation from league duty to Champions League duty produces an average of 5.5 changes. Ten seemed extreme.
A more staggered approach to rotation seemed the more sensible approach as victory would have put City — at least temporarily — top of the league table on 13 points. Last year, during the first edition of the new format, Aston Villa needed 16 points to secure the final automatic place. Victory here would have put City within three point of that threshold.
All is not lost. A home game against Galatasaray and trips to Real Madrid and Bodo Glimt offer City three chances to get over the line. But the margin for error has narrowed. City do not want to be going to the Bernabeu, nor the Arctic Circle in mid-January, needing to take something. Now they may need to.
City scraped through to the play-off round in 22nd place last year with just 11 points. Only goal difference saved them. Twelve months ago this sort of defeat would have been expected such was the malaise that had set in, but this week will have given Guardiola serious concern about how many of his squad players he can trust to start in important fixtures, let alone crunch games.
When City were in their pomp, several parts could change every game with such little effect on team performance that first choice and back-up was often an indistinguishable divide.
After Tuesday’s game, it could not be clearer who has a firm grip of the first-team jersey in the vast majority of positions.