Pep Guardiola says he chose his Manchester City side to face Club Brugge to counter a change he expected would come from the Belgian side - but the opposition didn't pick the team he thought they would.
City beat Brugge 5-1 in Belgium a fortnight ago, and Guardiola stressed the point that his side would have to be better in defence in the build-up to this return fixture, as well as warning his side that Brugge will have a point to prove.
With the derby against Manchester United coming up on Saturday, Guardiola dropped Ruben Dias, Gabriel Jesus and Kevin De Bruyne to the bench for Wednesday's fixture, but the manager insisted the derby has no impact on his selection against Brugge.
Admitting he was more concerned with how Club Brugge would alter their formation than looking ahead to United, Guardiola told BT Sport that he expected the Belgians to change their approach, but was not quite anticipating the lineup they named at the Etihad.
"Why do we have to play a game today that should be more important than the game three days?" he asked.
"I select the team the best as possible to beat them, I had a feeling [before] and now watching their line up [it's different], they change to five at the back, 5-3-2 or 5-2-1-2. We have to change a little bit, have to adapt, we didn't practice or know it.
"I know my experience when you have a result in the third game was good 1-5, the managers do something, they cannot do the same they did two weeks ago. We didn't know it but now we talk about it how to adjust. The main thing is the target to qualify for the last 16.
"Sometimes it happens, there are some teams always play the same way, others change things depending on many reasons. Even myself change things."
Guardiola also insisted that City have not had a difficult week after losing on penalties in the Carabao Cup to West Ham before going down 2-0 to Crystal Palace on Saturday.
"We draw one and lost the other one, it's part of the game. We are not extremely happy when we won ten in a row, not depressed when we lose two.
"Today is important, learn because it's a six-game competition, in the Premier League we have 28 games to play. It's different, improve from defeats and move forward.
"The most important thing is qualifying. After losing in Paris these two games [against Club Brugge] become really important. We did part of the job well in Belgium, now the second part and PSG here and Germany away. We need 4-6 points to quality, to finish first is better but who knows."
