Man City fatigue worry as Pep Guardiola takes swipe at scheduling and makes Liverpool vow

Pep Guardiola refused to talk about Sunday's trip to Liverpool after overseeing Manchester City's place in the Champions League quarter finals, insisting his selection decisions against Copenhagen on Wednesday were completely unconnected to the impending title race showdown at the weekend.

City booked their place in the Champions League quarter-finals with ease courtesy of a 6-2 aggregate win over Copenhagen. Two quickfire goals within eight minutes and an Erling Haaland strike before half-time mirrored the 3-1 win in Denmark, allowing Guardiola to rotate his key players ahead of the trip to Liverpool.

Having made seven changes from the win over Manchester United, Guardiola took off Rodri, Ruben Dias and Erling Haaland by full-time, before launched a passionate defence of his decisions and placing the blame on the Premier League for having to make the changes.

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Repeating himself three times, Guardiola vowed he would not discuss Liverpool until Friday's press conference, but he did say: "About Liverpool, [I'll talk] on Friday. I played Luton in the FA Cup not thinking about United. I needed energy today, fresh legs. I know how tired, you don't know how exhausted some of our players were today.

"To play just three days after. Normally in the Champions League, when you play on Wednesday, all the countries in the world except here they allow you to play Saturday. We played Sunday. I needed fresh legs, we were fortunate, lucky to score two goals early and then Erling helped us a lot."

Asked if he had taken up the matter with the Premier League