Guardiola genius tag takes a hit as he drops king Kev

PEP GUARDIOLA strongly defended his team selection as Manchester City began a critical fortnight in four competitions with a shock 2-1 home defeat by 10-man Leeds United.

Guardiola made seven changes from the team that beat Borussia Dortmund 2-1 last week and left Kevin De Bruyne on the bench as Stuart Dallas grabbed a stoppagetime winner for Leeds.

It represented a blow for City who now meet Dortmund on Wednesday night in the second leg of their Champions League quarter-final before facing Chelsea at Wembley next weekend.

The following week they meet Tottenham i n the final of the Carabao Cup — the first leg of a potential quadruple.

Guardiola gave Nathan Ake his first outing since Boxing Day yesterday and there were also recalls for Benjamin Mendy and out-of-sorts Raheem Sterling — and the City boss was adamant he’d do the same again.

‘When you win you are a genius,’ he retorted. ‘Not when you lose, but I don’t have any regret about about them. All of them were fantastic, Nathan, Benji.

‘When you lose a game you realise how difficult it is what we have done so far, winning 27 games in 28.

The next four games, three are like finals, Champions League, FA Cup, Carabao Cup. We have confidence for those games.

‘Defeat sometimes is necessary to understand how difficult it is what we have done.’

City’s lead in the Premier League could be cut to only eight points by the time they next play in the competition on April 21 because Manchester United are in action twice before then.

Guardiola was disappointed his side allowed Leeds to score a counter-attack winner late in the game, having seen City draw level after 76 minutes through Ferran Torres.

‘You cannot let Leeds run at you when you control the game,’ he said. ‘They defended so deep but before the goal we conceded a run. Then it happened again and they won the game.

We created chances but not too clear because our crosses were not precise and in the box we are not the best headers.

‘ We had many more shots but football does not work like that. Bayern Munich had more than 30 shots against PSG last week and still lost.’