Guardiola only has himself to blame as Man City gamble leads to new humiliation

MANCHESTER CITY 0-2 BAYER LEVERKUSEN: Pep Guardiola changed nearly his entire team on Tuesday night but his side fell to their first Champions League defeat of the season against the Germans

Pep Guardiola swapped feelings of shame and embarrassment for utter humiliation at the Etihad. On a humbling night to forget for Guardiola, Manchester City crashed to their first Champions League defeat in the group stages at home since 2018.

And Guardiola only had himself to blame. Having taken the bizarre decision to name a second string side, he was rewarded with a second rate performance. Goals in each half from Alejandro Grimaldo and Patrik Schick were more than enough to give Bayer Leverkusen a shock, but deserved, win.

To ruin Guardiola’s 100th Champions League game as City boss. Not to mention pile more pain on the Spaniard, who called himself out for behaving like an idiot towards a camera operator in the wake of his side’s defeat at Newcastle last weekend.

Leverkusen had arrived in Manchester third in the Bundesliga. But the omens still felt against them. City had won all of their last 13 home games against German opposition in the Champions League.

Yet when Guardiola’s team was announced, the visitors must have felt like punching the air. The biggest names were missing, including Erling Haaland, Phil Foden, Bernardo Silva and Gianluigi Donnarumma.

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Ten changes in total – and a gamble from the Spaniard, who appeared to be smarting from last weekend’s loss at St James’ Park.

Surely he hadn’t been saving his strongest side for the visit of Leeds United this weekend? But it took a sharp save from Mark Flecken to keep out Nathan Ake’s shot and stop the hosts from going ahead inside five minutes.

Yet despite dominating possession, City had no end product. And Leverkusen hit them with a sucker punch on the break to take the lead, when Grimaldo drilled a shot back across James Trafford and into the bottom corner, following Christian Kofane’s lay off.

Tiijani Reijnders should have equalised on half time, but fired straight at Flecken as City’s frustrations began to mount. Guardiola had seen enough and sent on some of his big guns, in the shape of Foden, and Jeremy Doku. But his second experiment of the night continued to blow up in his face again, when Leverkusen doubled their lead through Schick, who met a cross from Ibrahim Maze to beat Trafford with a superb downward header.

Savinho then wasted a golden chance to pull one back. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and on came Haaland in the hope of rescuing his side. But he failed to beat the impressive Flecken, when finding himself one-on-one with the goalkeeper, who also kept out a curling free kick from Rayan Cherki.

Haaland then smashed a volley well over the crossbar, after the ball had fallen kindly to him in the box. The Norwegian was facing up to the prospect of going two games without a goal for the first time this season.

Guardiola stood there on the sidelines with is hands in his pockets, looking increasingly perplexed. Which was understandable. Because when someone as prolific as Haaland can’t ride to the rescue, then no-one can.

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