Pep Guardiola changed the habit of a lifetime and Man City paid the price

Manchester City face a battle to secure a top-eight finish in the Champions League after Pep Guardiola's selection gamble against Bayer Leverkusen backfired.

A couple of weeks ago, Pep Guardiola discussed the importance of bouncing back from defeats. He had been particularly impressed with Manchester City's reaction to losing to Aston Villa and the four straight wins that followed that setback.

Swansea was the start of it all. It might have looked like a run-of-the-mill Carabao Cup fourth-round tie, but to Guardiola it was further proof that his team really were back this season. They didn't let one defeat become two become three and four. Instead, they got back to winning ways and got Villa Park out of the system. Guardiola felt it laid the platform for what followed.

That made the visit of Bayer Leverkusen to the Etihad the equivalent of Swansea. City had been beaten at Newcastle on Saturday and now they had to start winning again. But rather than pick a team to make sure of it, Guardiola rolled the dice. It was an uncharacteristic gamble from a manager who usually plays it safe with his team selections, and it backfired.

Now one defeat has become two and it all felt a little avoidable. There was more than a little surprise when the City team was revealed 75 minutes before kick-off. Guardiola very rarely makes wholesale changes in the Champions League until safe passage into the knockout rounds is secured.

The new league phase might have slightly changed the game in that regard, but City had done the hard work in laying a solid platform with 10 points from their first four games. Another couple of wins would have done the job. Guardiola stressed before the home game against Borussia Dortmund the importance of winning on their own turf, so this felt like a risk he didn't need to take.

He could argue City only had a couple of clear days between defeat at Newcastle and this Champions League game, but at St James' Park, he said his players wanted the busy schedule and pointed to the trebles and quadruples as evidence of how they thrive when the calendar is relentless.

There are also three days after this to prepare for a Premier League home game against a newly promoted side who are out of form. Making three or four changes and another three or four against Leeds seemed the sensible route to rotation this week.

Instead, Guardiola threw the baby out with the bathwater. Was he looking to make a point? He had picked the same team for three Premier League games in a row and there was a feeling that he was settling on a best XI. That bit the dust at Newcastle and this might have been a reaction to that, a message to his team that nobody was safe.

If it was, it was a message that backfired. Most of the 10 that were rested will wake up today more assured of their places than they were 24 hours ago. You can guarantee almost all of them will be back in the team for the December trip to Madrid and a Bernabeu showdown with Real that now feels like it has taken on a significance that should have been unnecessary.

City will only really know the damage this defeat has caused once Wednesday's games have been played, but it is certainly possible they will find themselves outside the top eight by the end of matchday five. That is far from ideal when Real lie in wait next.

The Blues took the play-off route last season and bumped into Madrid in January, ending their participation in the competition early. This season was all about making sure of a place in the last-16 without those two extra games, but suddenly that is in doubt after a dismal night at the Etihad.