Pep Guardiola sends title race reminder Man City players can't ignore

'I decide for this game' is the usual Pep Guardiola explanation for any given Manchester City team selection.

Guardiola is notorious for his rotation, seeing the value in keeping his squad full of talented players as happy as possible. Only when he gets to the end of the season, when the semi-finals and finals come along, do those team selections become more scrutinised.

After City beat Arsenal on Wednesday, and with three winnable games to follow in seven days, it would have been expected for Guardiola to make the changes at Fulham and keep everyone happy. After replacing the injured Kevin de Bruyne, however, Guardiola decided to keep trust in the same players who beat Arsenal.

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Guardiola insists that he is not thinking about the trip to Real Madrid in nine days, knowing the importance of maximum points in the title race before that. If City can go to Spain top of the league, that will be the best preparation possible.

Still, the fixtures allow for rotation and game management at a critical time of the season.

Maybe Guardiola has learned from earlier in the season, though, where big results have been followed by disappointing ones. They lost to Brentford after the euphoria of the comeback against Fulham, and drew with Nottingham Forest following the win at Arsenal in February.

After beating Arsenal again, Guardiola must have been keen not to make the same mistakes, so he only made two changes at Fulham - one enforced and another tactical as Julian Alvarez and Riyad Mahrez replaced De Bruyne and Bernardo Silva.

The result was a strong side and a message from the manager to follow up the Arsenal win. Aymeric Laporte and Phil Foden may have fancied starts, but that was