Pep Guardiola indicated before Manchester City faced Liverpool that he would have preferred not to play at least four of his starting XI. It was hardly a confidence-boosting admission of the side he had just named.
Guardiola picked Rodri, Aymeric Laporte, Nathan Ake and Manuel Akanji, all with just four days of training under their belts since returning from their World Cup last-16 exits. Going off his pre-match interview, he would have preferred not to play them.
Yet a day before in his pre-match press conference, Guardiola sounded pleasantly surprised that his World Cup contingent had returned to City in better shape than he had expected. So what changed?
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For one, he may have been referring to Ilkay Gundogan and Kevin De Bruyne, who both failed to reach the knockout stages in Qatar and therefore had a fortnight to prepare for this game. The four Spanish, Swiss and Dutch players all played a game more, and had less time to prepare.
However, Guardiola still opted for Ake over the fully-fit Sergio Gomez at the back against Liverpool, and resisted the option of calling up any academy defenders who played in the friendly vs Girona at the weekend. He clearly decided that he had to trust his players' fitness, even if he would prefer to give them more time off.
And that raises another potentially contradictory statement from Guardiola, as he stated on Friday that the World Cup returnees actually looked sharper than those with six weeks rest between games.
Erling Haaland put that theory to bed within a minute as he raced onto Gundogan's through-ball and lobbed an effort wide, before opening his account eight minutes later in a first-half display full of running, pressing and harassing of his defenders until his 72nd-minute substitution.
After returning to full training later than those who stayed behind from the World Cup, Haaland looked the fittest on the pitch as City continue to successfully manage his workload. Liverpool only started two players who had featured in Qatar, and Blues players completed nearly 3000 more minutes than their Liverpool counterparts at the World Cup, yet City matched them for every ball.
So maybe Guardiola is right and wrong in his assessments.
Haaland and Riyad Mahrez both looked refreshed and motivated after their breaks, and the defensive issues exploited by Liverpool were more related to City's tactical decision to switch between a back four and a three. There were no issues with the fitness of any of their World Cup starters, with Ake, Laporte and Rodri completing 90 minutes.
That can help them during a busy festive schedule and then the long list of big games coming every four days in the new year. Whether any World Cup fatigue will come into play later in the season is anyone's guess - as Guardiola has been saying for months that nobody knows how players will react to the tournament.
For now, despite his pre-match grumbles of having limited options for his defence against Liverpool, Guardiola will be happy that his season-long fears for his players' fitness are yet to be realised.
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