Pep Guardiola big calls at Southampton shift the Man City conversation

Pep Guardiola would rather have had Ruben Dias available for this period of games but, having assessed the calendar, he was confident that he would be able to play Aymeric Laporte and John Stones in every fixture. So it has happened: Manchester City have played four games since Dias pulled his hamstring and Stones and Laporte have started all four.

Given there were six days between the trip to Selhurst Park and this FA Cup quarter-final, before a fortnight's break, City's manager could feasibly have kept the same XI from the Palace game. He had been happy with their performance in the 0-0 draw, and the players all had more recovery time than they usually get.

Instead, Guardiola made several notable changes. Zack Steffen, Gabriel Jesus, Raheem Sterling and Ilkay Gundogan came into the XI, Bernardo Silva, Riyad Mahrez and Phil Foden dropped to the bench, and Ederson was only in Southampton for moral support with Scott Carson a substitute instead.

Man City rediscover Treble form as Southampton blown away in FA Cup quarter-final

Replacing some of the most important and in-form players with others who haven't played as much recently would be a gamble for any quarter-final, let alone one that came against this Southampton team on the back of two stalemates that have only allowed City to inch forward while Liverpool have moved closer. Guardiola seemed to believe on Friday in his pre-match press conference that people believe Liverpool to now be in control of the title race, and was irked by this (the fact that it isn't really accurate doesn't really matter).

If the City boss wanted to make a point, he could have started his strongest XI to show what business this team still mean this season. By not using his most in-form