A luggage problem in Germany forced the plane carrying the Leverkusen team to return to the departure gate on Monday afternoon, delaying their arrival in Manchester.
A day later, City’s excessive tinkering on the matchday left a senior member of Bayer Leverkusen staff, in his own words, “shocked”, and he told BBC Sport that they had made the necessary preparations for the match but were not expecting that particular line-up.
Another staff member pointed out that key players such as defender Edmond Tapsoba, former Real Madrid player Lucas Vázquez and Argentine duo Exequiel Palacios and Equi Fernández are unavailable as a sign they may struggle in the game, with six under-19 players named on the bench.
Star man and goal machine Erling Haaland, Phil Foden and Rayan Cherki were substitutes for City in the first period and, when they were later called upon, were ultimately unable to produce a second-half rescue act.
Omar Marmoush failed to take advantage of his attacking opportunity and attempted to rouse a home crowd that was often as flat as the team, while Savinho and Oscar Bobb were both on the periphery of the game.
City were slow, plodding and the changes left them disjointed and this could end up being a damaging defeat in the competition – defeat means they head to European giants Real Madrid on December 10 under pressure to get some kind of result.
“They tried to do it [perform] but when you are in a big team you have to shine,” Guardiola said. “Everyone… [including] The guys who came off the bench were the same. Every shot was blocked, they slipped 10 times.
“Maybe with the players who were playing regularly lately, maybe we would have had confidence. I always like to be too nice and involve everyone because I have the feeling after the international break, I expect there to be games every three or four days and there is no human being who can stand that.”
Guardiola became only the third manager to manage 100 or more Champions League games for an English team after Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger, but the historic occasion was unforgettable.
“The message from a lot of people will be: why didn’t you play against a stronger team?” asked former City midfielder Michael Brown on BBC Radio 5 Live. “Win the game and then make the changes, that’s what people will say.
“There was almost an expectation that it was just going to be routine, but what they did with those changes was give the visiting team a big boost. If you walk onto the field looking the other way, you’ll think we have a great chance with all those players sitting on the bench. That gave them faith.
“That said, you still feel City’s performance could have been much better with the players they had.”
