![\"Manchester,](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/002388af-614.jpg\"\/)
\nErling Haaland was held in reserve until after the hour mark<\/p>\n
Manchester City paid the price for making wholesale changes as they slumped to a surprise 2-0 home loss to Bayer Leverkusen in the Champions League.<\/p>\n
Pep Guardiola’s decision to bench a host of big names including Erling Haaland and Gianluigi Donnarumma backfired as Alejandro Grimaldo and Patrik Schick fired the Germans to a memorable win at the Etihad Stadium.<\/p>\n
The defeat ended City\u2019s unbeaten record in the league phase and, with a tricky trip to Real Madrid next, their top-eight prospects suddenly look weaker.<\/p>\n
Haaland was among the big guns summoned in the second half but the damage was done in the first hour as a Leverkusen side thrashed 7-2 by Paris St Germain last month made light of the absence of 12 players.<\/p>\n
It was not the response Guardiola had hoped for following Saturday\u2019s reverse at Newcastle, from which only Nico Gonzalez retained his starting place.<\/p>\n
His desire to rotate amid a busy programme was understandable but the ineffectiveness of his second string, particularly in an Omar Marmoush-led attack, will be a concern.<\/p>\n
City had an early chance when Nathan Ake poked at goal following a corner but former Brentford goalkeeper Mark Flekken pushed away.<\/p>\n
It was a rare opportunity for the hosts who, despite plenty of possession, lacked bite up front as Haaland watched on from the bench.<\/p>\n
Leverkusen soaked up plenty of pressure but carried a threat on the break and Rayan Ait-Nouri blocked a fierce strike from Ernest Poku.<\/p>\n
\nErling Haaland was held in reserve until after the hour mark<\/p>\n
The Germans grabbed the lead in the 23rd minute as they swept forward from deep. Ibrahim Maza delivered a cross from the right and Christian Kofane laid off for Grimaldo to drive in.<\/p>\n
City\u2019s response was lacklustre and it was not until the closing stages of the first half they posed any danger. That was dealt with as Flekken stuck out a leg to block a low ball from Oscar Bobb and then saved a long-range effort from Tijjani Reijnders.<\/p>\n
Guardiola made a triple change at the interval, sending on Phil Foden, Nico O\u2019Reilly and Jeremy Doku, but the tempo of the game was not altered.<\/p>\n
Leverkusen doubled their lead in the 54th minute when Schick got ahead of Ake to meet a Maza cross with a superb glancing header that James Trafford could do nothing about.<\/p>\n
Haaland was introduced with just over an hour gone and was soon in the action as he raced on to a Foden throughball but Flekken rushed out to meet him.<\/p>\n
City upped the pressure but England and former Liverpool centre-back Jarell Quansah was superb in the visitors\u2019 defence.<\/p>\n
Haaland shot over and Rayan Cherki had a free-kick saved but it was not to be on a poor night for City.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Manchester City paid the price for making wholesale changes as they slumped to a surprise 2-0 home loss…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":159719,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-159718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}