Alan Shearer has suggested that Manuel Pellegrini was wrong to rest a number of his key players for Manchester City's FA Cup fifth-round tie at Chelsea.
The Citizens boss made mass changes to his starting lineup for the Stamford Bridge clash, handing five youngsters their debuts with one eye on the midweek Champions League meeting against Dynamo Kiev.
City would go on to suffer a heavy 5-1 reverse in West London, and Shearer believes that the writing was on the wall before a ball was kicked.
"You never see [Luis] Suarez, [Lionel] Messi and Neymar rested," he told BBC Sport. "These are the best players in the world and I never see these guys wanting to be left out.
"I know Barcelona won 7-0 in the first leg of the Copa del Rey and were then left out of the second leg, that's understandable. Other than that I never see these guys being left out. For us, it seems a big issue in our country."
Pellegrini insisted after the game that he had been "forced" into naming a heavily weakened side due to a congested fixture list.
Daniel Lewis
