Manuel Pellegrini admitted Manchester City's performance in Saturday's 4-1 home defeat to Liverpool had been "a complete disaster," but refused to accept criticism of his team selection.
Liverpool stunned City at the Etihad Stadium, racing into a three-goal lead after just 32 minutes courtesy of an own goal from Eliaquim Managala and a strike apiece from Philippe Coutinho and Roberto Firmino.
Sergio Aguero -- back playing after six weeks out injured -- netted just before half-time, but Jurgen Klopp's side held on with Martin Skrtel scoring a late volley to cap an impressive win for the visitors on Saturday evening.
"I'm more than angry, it's unbelievable the performance tonight," said Pellegrini at his postgame news conference. "It's difficult to understand why we played so badly, the whole team -- I've never seen this team play the way we did tonight."
The Chilean coach rested midfielder Fernandinho and central defender Nicolas Otamendi after they travelled back from playing World Cup qualifiers for Brazil and Argentina respectively.
Pellegrini defended his selection, saying: "I will not explain the starting XI, if I had to choose the same starting XI I would choose the same. It was not one or two names -- it was a complete disaster [for] the whole team."
The City boss had subbed off Jesus Navas and Yaya Toure at half-time but to little avail, saying: "I was not happy with the performance from the starting XI, not just Navas and Toure. We tried to make another system, we tried to press high, but it was not our night.
"We lost so many balls in attack it was impossible to create chances. It was very difficult to understand the performance."
When asked about Raheem Sterling's performance against his old club, Pellegrini said: "I repeat I don't want to talk about one player.
"I think it's very important to turn the page as soon as we can, this performance is not normal.
"I think that we must think about what will happen in the future, we have an important game on Wednesday," he said in reference to City's midweek Champions League encounter with Juventus.