Pep Guardiola says Manchester City’s involvement in three competitions forced him to rotate a number of players for Saturday’s clash with Leicester.
Aymeric Laporte, Kyle Walker and Riyad Mahrez came in for Nathan Ake, Ilkay Gundogan and Manuel Akanji in three changes made from the 3-0 win over Bayern Munich in the Champions League on Tuesday.
Laporte started just his seventh Premier League game of the season amid speculation he could exit the Etihad this summer. Kyle Walker started his first league match since the 2-0 win over Newcastle on March 3 while Mahrez began his third straight league fixture.
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Explaining his decision to rotate, Guardiola told Sky Sports: “We are in three competitions so everybody has to be involved. I would have loved to have named more rotations but from my experience when you rotate in this period with more than four or five, it’s a risk it never works well.
“But I thought a lot to change more players but at the end, the game is 90 minutes and we’ll see what happens in the second half.”
City have played three at the back in recent matches and consequently Walker has been out of the team. When asked to explain what system he would play against Leicester, Guardiola said: “you will see it [on the pitch]”.
Ederson started in goal behind Walker, Laporte and Ruben Dias with John Stones partnering Rodri in defensive midfield.
Kevin de Bruyne and Bernardo Silva sat in midfield with Mahrez and Jack Grealish flanking Erling Haaland.
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