Newcastle United manager Rafael Benitez has defended his decision to rest a number of players for the clash against Manchester City.

Benitez fielded an understrength starting lineup for United's 1-0 defeat against City on Wednesday night.

But the Spanish manager insisted that he selected a team capable of beating the Citizens.

Benitez said: "It was not about resting players for Saturday, it was about trying to play the best players possible to try to get something from this game. We were trying to win this game.

"We cannot forgot we have a couple of games in a few games time against teams at the bottom of the table, but today the idea was to have players with pace to play counter-attack, and try to create something.

"We did that in the first half with Rolando, and we had a couple of chances in the second half where we were very close."