Pep says he was 'too nice' to his players

PEP Guardiola said that he was 'too nice' to his City players wanting them all to be involved after 10 changes to his starting XI against Leverkusen resulted in one of the weakest performances of the season.

- By SIMON BAJKOWSKI

There were even some boos at the Etihad after a limp 2-0 Champions League defeat that weakens their hopes of a top-eight finish ahead of their trip to Real Madrid.

City will head to the Spanish capital in a few weeks and before then have three Premier League games in which the aim has to be not to lose further ground to current leaders Arsenal.

Any more setbacks will push City further onto the back foot, although part of their problems against Leverkusen was that the XI who started were not confident enough to play the game they had been told to play.