No excuses for Man City as £435m ‘back-up team’ shocking in Leverkusen defeat | OneFootball

Man City boss Pep Guardiola ‘gambled’ with his heavily rotated team selection against Bayer Leverkusen in the Champions League. But at the end of the day, it was still a £435million line-up.

Guardiola made ten changes to the team beaten 2-1 by Newcastle United on Saturday, bringing in James Trafford (£31m), Abdukodir Khusanov (£34m), John Stones (£50m), Nathan Ake (£41m), Rayan Ait-Nouri (£37m), Tijjani Reijnders (£47m), Rico Lewis (free), Oscar Bobb (free), Omar Marmoush (£59m) and Savinho (£34m), with Nico Gonzalez (£50m) the only survivor.

You can’t blame Guardiola for giving his back-up players a run-out, but such significant changes were always likely to lead to an incoherent performance, and that’s exactly what Man City produced.

However, heavy rotation or not, there are no excuses when the team you put out is full of players worth a combined £435m in transfer fees, made even more remarkable when you remember Bobb and Lewis are academy graduates. That’s £385m worth of players replacing an even more expensive line-up…that also lost.

Leverkusen deserved their 2-0 triumph at the Etihad. City lacked creativity and any sort of cutting edge in attack. Had Erling Haaland started, it might not have made a difference, but the fact he didn’t come on until the 65th minute, when it was already 2-0, only strengthens the narrative that this team can’t cope without him.

Haaland and Rayan Cherki came on at the same time as Khusanov and Marmoush departed, with the latter looking devoid of the confidence he showed in his first few months in England. Watching Haaland bang them in every week can’t be easy for his immediate back-up, and it looks to be taking its toll.

Cherki couldn’t get things ticking as Guardiola went all-out attack to salvage something from the game, and Savinho delivered another poor performance on the wing. Tottenham Hotspur will be buzzing they avoided signing him for big money, while simultaneously wondering who sanctioned a £60m bid for him.

He is one of many big-money players who failed to deliver on a night that really mattered for him and City’s other fringe players.

People will say City should have played a stronger team, but it was still a strong team, and one worth a ridiculous amount of money. The only real question mark is Lewis playing in midfield; that’s about it.

Guardiola introduced Cherki and Haaland 20 minutes into the second half, having already brought on Phil Foden, Nico O’Reilly and Jeremy Doku at half-time. Again, all three made little impact.

It was simply an off night for everyone involved.

The biggest losers of the night might actually be Leeds United. They now have to face a fresh City team desperate to punish their lowly opposition after two frustrating defeats in a row.

If Daniel Farke needs to win at the Etihad to save his job, he may as well have his bags packed already.