Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola was unhappy at the state of the John Smith's Stadium pitch after watching his side draw with Huddersfield Town in the FA Cup fifth round yesterday.

The surface had been questioned by the former Barcelona boss before the match, with the Huddersfield Giants playing on the turf just two days before the cup tie.

And Guardiola spoke about the pitch again after City were held by David Wagner's side - but also admitted Town were a hard team to play against.

"I said a big compliment to the team because I know how difficult that game is with the pitch," he said.

"Two days ago they played rugby and everything is a bit slow, they are so aggressive, they are so dynamic.

"They have a really good team, that is why they are where they are in the Championship. We will play the replay for the first time in my life and we will try and qualify.

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"The first half we had our chances, the goalkeeper was brilliant. The second half maybe we played a bit better but we didn't create too many chances."

Guardiola made eight changes to the side that played in the Premier League against Bournemouth on Monday, and the manager went on to defend his decision to rest his players - pointing out that Town had also made seven changes.

He said: "Huddersfield rotated their players. With this schedule with a lot of games - we played three or four days ago, we had this game, we have Champions League against Monaco - these players deserved to play."