Manchester City News: Sky Blues Turn To Academy Players With Veterans Injured

Pep Guardiola knows that for Manchester City to lift another Carabao Cup trophy, the best players need to be used.

Unfortunately, he will have to improvise with most regular stars out due to injuries.

It was something evident when the Sky Blues missed the services of several players in Saturday’s draw with Southampton.

John Stones, Aymeric Laporte, Rodri, Oleksander ZInchenko and Zack Steffen were not around as the Citizens settled for a scoreless draw against the Saints.

Guardiola and company will next face the Wycombe Wanderers on Tuesday, September 21, the Guardian reported.

Given their injury crisis, the Manchester City boss revealed that they have no choice but to field in Academy players in that game.

“A few players from the Academy are going to play because we have John, Ayme, Rodri, Oleks, all of them are injured. Ruben [Dias] and Joao [Cancelo] played all the minutes and I do not think they will be able to play in this game. We will see,” Guardiola stated. “We don’t have four or five days [to prepare], we have three to make a good selection. It’s an opportunity for the Academy, that’s why they are there.”

With that said, it will now be interesting who among the young and promising players from the academy Guardiola plans to use.

Cole Palmer is expected to be one of them, someone who made his English Premier League debut against Norwich earlier this season.

Aside from Palmer, another player likely to see action is Luke Mbete-Tabu. If he does, he would appear just three days before he turns 18 years old.

Romeo Lavia, Josh Wilson-Esbrand and Liam Delap are other players that Guardiola may have to turn to in light of the injury crisis hounding the Citizens.

But Guardiola may not entirely rely on youth starting Tuesday. The injury to regulars could give other veterans on the team to show their stuff.

That includes Phil Foden who is coming off an injury. He has been getting spot minutes and the situation of the Sky Blues could work in his favor.

Raheem Sterling could also use this as an opportunity to shine. He got only his second start against Southampton but came out with a good performance.

“He was so active in terms of movement, but football depends a lot on how good we do the process in the build-up, and when it happens, our strikers and wingers play better and our attacking midfielders play better,” Guardiola said about his performance.