Man City make decision on academy call-ups for Newcastle tie in Carabao Cup

Manchester City will not call up any academy players for the Carabao Cup tie at Newcastle on Wednesday, as Pep Guardiola backtracked on his claim last week.

After City beat West Ham earlier this month, Guardiola declared that he would have to 'play with some players from the second team [at Newcastle] because we cannot take the risks.' Mateo Kovacic had just joined the injury list, with Bernardo Silva also picking up a problem a few days later.

Kovacic could return against Newcastle, but Bernardo, John Stones and Kevin De Bruyne remain unavailable while Rodri begins a three-match suspension. And Guardiola confirmed that City have decided that this year's under-21 players are not ready to join the first team so early in the season.

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With the club earning over £50m in transfer fees from their best academy players this summer, the under-21 side have a much younger profile this season as many have only just stepped up from under-18 level. The Elite Development Squad also had an important EFL Trophy fixture away to Barnsley of League One on Tuesday.

So City have decided to stick with their senior options in order to give the academy players more time to develop among their own age group.

"All the players in our squad are ready and unfortunately the second team we cannot take a few of them because we sold a lot of them, and still they are not ready to play with us," Guardiola said.

"That is why we have to give time to them to develop. We cannot just bring them from the academy and play them there, no… we spoke with Txiki [Begiristain] and Brian [Barry-Murphy], they