Pep Guardiola defended his decision to throw Abdukodir Khusanov into his Manchester City debut against Chelsea at the Etihad, saying he had no other option.

With Ruben Dias and Nathan Ake injured, and John Stones still not fully fit, Guardiola went into the top four showdown against Chelsea declaring he only had one fit centre-back in Manuel Akanji, as well as the 20-year-old debutant Khusanov.

It was the Uzbek who started ahead of the more experienced Stones, but the debutant was at fault for Chelsea's opener after two minutes and collected a yellow card moments later. Chelsea boss Enzo Maresca admitted that his side purposely targeted Khusanov in the opening stages.

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"I think we exploited quite well in terms of we score the first goal, we could score the second and he had a yellow card as well," said Maresca. "We could score the second, unfortunately we missed [the chance] and the game was there."

There was criticism from the Sky Sports pundits, too, with Jamie Redknapp saying Guardiola had made a mistake in playing Khusanov in such a difficult game against an opposition like Chelsea.

But Guardiola defended his player, and denied that he considered replacing him in the first half to take him out of the firing line. However, his 54th minute substitution was telling, but Guardiola said Khusanov's yellow card was the main factor behind the change - rather than Stones' availability on the bench.

"In this kind of situation, there's nothing much to say," Guardiola said of Khusanov. "They know he makes it [a mistake]. He knows he make a mistake. He doesn't [not] know it. What can I say? 'Don't do a mistake?'

"He doesn't want to do it, so we know that. The reaction from the manager was amazing, the whole staff, and especially, I make a substitution for two reasons.: mainly for the yellow card, not just for the mistake. And especially I need John for Wednesday [vs Club Brugge], because Marmoush and Kuza and Victor [Reis] cannot play, and I need John. He comes from the injury and he needs rhythm.

"And it was good to play this 35, 40 minutes with us, and because the final we have on Wednesday with our people, of course, John is important."

Guardiola added that he places no blame on Khusanov, who has not trained with his teammates in a full session since signing earlier this week. On Tuesday, for example, Guardiola kept his available defenders in the Champions League separate from the main group, with a game in Paris on Wednesday and recovery sessions on Thursday and Friday.

"He's so young, he's come for many years," Guardiola said in defence of his new signings. "It's not the best start of course, but dealing with [Nicolas] Jackson, with Cole [Palmer], with all these incredible players is not easy. And I love the reaction of his mates.

"He didn't make one training session with us, he didn't make absolutely anything because we came from Ipswich and Paris, so it was just recovery, recovery, recovery. And yeah, he will learn. He's young, he will learn, I'm pretty sure. Take a lesson from that and the reaction from the team."