Pep Guardiola sarcastically insisted he is a "so good manager" after facing questions over his decision to not make a substitution during Manchester City's draw at RB Leipzig.
City travelled to Germany for the first leg of their Champions League last 16 tie on Wednesday night. The visitors took the lead through Riyad Mahrez, before being pegged back with 20 minutes to go by Josko Gvardiol's header.
Despite still having a significant chunk of the game remaining, Guardiola decided against making any subs. He had failed to make any changes before Gvardiol's equaliser, though City did begin to assert themselves after that goal.
They had a strong claim for a penalty turned down, but were unable to find a way past Janis Blaswich. Meanwhile, Leipzig utilised all five of their permitted substitutions, as Guardiola left the likes of Julian Alvarez and Phil Foden on the bench.
The City boss launched a strong defence of his decision to leave his starting XI on the pitch for all 90 minutes, providing a typically sarcastic response to the questions, highlighting his talent as a manager.
"I have the opportunity as a rule to make five substitutions. But I am the manager and I apply it and I take it if I want. So that doesn’t mean that because I have five substitutions I have to do five substitutions," Guardiola said.
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"And I am a so good manager to decide what I have to do or not. I was really pleased with what I was seeing. So I thought of course with Phil to have this talent to do this. But after the goal I thought immediately to put Phil [on].
"But immediately we took again the game in our hands and then with this control that we had. Because they play with six up front, we play with the two-two plus the full-backs plus the wingers, four players, incredible runners.
"And in that position and the way they play you have to have a lot of control. That’s why the players that we had, like [Ilkay] Gundo[gan], like Riyad, the extra passes they were doing are what we need, especially in the first leg."
Guardiola went on to joke that he was considering a "crazy" tactical set-up for the second leg at the Etihad Stadium. But he did insist that he had always expected Leipzig to put up a difficult challenge.
"Maybe in the second leg I will decide to be crazy and play with nine strikers! But in this game I felt – I’ve been in this country, I’ve analysed as much as possible with my people – I needed this type of control," he added.
"Otherwise it becomes up-and-down and open. I am so delighted with the game we played. In three weeks hopefully we can arrive in good condition. Of course I will learn from what I saw today, we can do better, we can adjust something in the build-up because they are a really good team and find a way to get through.
“It’s Champions League, big clubs are in the Europa League right now so it’s such a demanding competition. Before it was quite easy but now today, all the teams in all leagues are really strong. Good teams, good managers."
