Pep Guardiola made some switch-ups to his Manchester City starting lineup and the result was absolutely disastrous.
Overcomplication is the key word tonight, as Pep Guardiola tried too hard to do something different against Real Madrid.
Ahead of the game, Guardiola insisted Man City would not deliver any surprises, but he seemed intent on catching out the La Liga club with a changed team.
Ultimately this plan failed miserably, so here are the three biggest mistakes the Man City boss made which may well have cost his side in the Champions League.
Rayan Ait-Nouri and Matheus Nunes should not have been dropped
Manchester City’s usual full-backs have been very good this season and it was surprising to see that neither of them were starting against Real Madrid.
Nunes has been involved a lot recently, although resting him in such a big game is odd. Then there is the decision to switch out Ait-Nouri, which should never have happened.
Nico O’Reilly was partly responsible for Real Madrid’s opening goal and Abdukodir Khusanov could have done better for both the second. He also should have put more pressure on Vinicius when Gianluigi Donnarumma conceded a penalty in the second half.
Man City’s structure was unbalanced
Playing a 4-2-3-1 showed that Guardiola expected his team to be on top against Madrid, but the hosts were able to cause a lot of damage when they counter-attacked.
Rodri and Bernardo Silva are both very good players, but to have such an attacking focus caused a lot of instability in Man City’s team.
The control was never there and while City were slow and predictable, Madrid worked quickly and delivered some moments of absolute brilliance to secure a decisive victory.
Omar Marmoush should not have been dropped
Erling Haaland was not effective against Nottingham Forest last week and he was not even in the squad at the weekend.
Although the striker was not helped on Wednesday night, he did nothing to make any sort of difference for Man City, so maybe Guardiola should have stuck with Omar Marmoush.
The Egyptian played brilliantly at the weekend and it was his goals which put City in the FA Cup quarter-finals. There is no guarantee his team would have scored tonight if he had started, but Haaland is clearly not at his best right now.
