Pep Guardiola will continue to rotate his Manchester City squad in the Carabao Cup and is prepared to use more academy players in the fourth round.
Guardiola handed a debut to 16-year-old Kaden Brathwaite and gave a home debut to Nico O'Reilly, while Jacob Wright came off the bench and James McAtee made his first City start at the Etihad in the win over Watford on Tuesday.
He made nine changes in total, and a half-time substitution between Jeremy Doku and Savinho was pre-planned. A farcical set of circumstances meant City had to play their Carabao Cup tie with Watford just 49 hours since the draw with Arsenal, and Guardiola insists he will use the competition to rest his senior players. ALSO READ: Pep Guardiola confirms crushing Rodri injury blow as Man City pin hopes on final tests ALSO READ: Man City player ratings vs Watford as Rico Lewis and Savinho impress "The next round, I announce you now: I will play the players who play the less minutes or play the second team," he declared. "We are not going to waste energy on this competition for sure. "I don't know what will happen, if we have a lot of injuries we play the second team.
If we have all the squad ready it's a good competition to play the rhythm." Guardiola has been a vocal critic of the schedule, backing Rodri's calls for players to strike with increasing workloads, and he insisted he has no other option but to call upon the academy, or 'second team', again. "The schedule is the schedule, we cannot handle it anyway differently," he said, pointing to the positives of his rotation stance. "Today for [James] McAtee, Matheus [Nunes], Jack [Grealish] who didn't play [vs Arsenal].