PEP’S NOT KIDDING OVER CITY INJURY LIST MAN CITY v BRENTFORD Carabao Cup: KO 7.30pm, Sky Sports
PEP GUARDIOLA is ready to give youth a chance tonight as Manchester City aim to reach the Carabao Cup semi-finals.
The Catalan boss wants to rest some big names – ahead of Saturday’s Premier League clash with West Ham – and put his faith in City’s academy players against Brentford.
Guardiola won the competition four times in a row between 2018 and 2021, but is not sure he has the squad to go all the way this time with six players missing this week.
Rayan Ait-nouri and Omar Marmoush have headed off to their national teams for Africa Cup of Nations duty, while winger Jeremy Doku (right) will miss two or three weeks with a muscle injury.
Those absences add to Rodri, John Stones and Mateo Kovacic, with none of the injured trio expected to feature against the Bees.
Guardiola was planning to make changes anyway, having barely rotated for the last three matches against Sunderland, Real Madrid, and Crystal Palace. His preference for using the early rounds of the Carabao Cup to bring in players on the fringes has continued this season, and that is likely to be the same this week.
Divine Mukasa has been training with the first team for most of the season and was on the bench at Palace, while Reigan Heskey has worked with the group again in recent weeks, and Kaden Braithwaite stepped up this week. Guardiola, who confirmed one starter in goalkeeper James Trafford, is prioritising the Prem game against the Hammers as City look to continue to take the fight to Arsenal.
He said: “James is going to play and all the players who didn’t play are going to play, plus some from the academy. After that, in three days, we have West Ham.
“I’m not saying that getting to the semi-finals of the League Cup is not the priority, but normally when we achieve it it is because we have all the squad, no injuries and can rotate, the team is good. When you are one game away from the semi-finals in one competition, you can take it because you never know when it’s going back.
“I have to find the balance but there are players with a lot of minutes with not much time to recover, and with the physios and the doctors I have to see because the important game is West Ham.
“I’m sorry but West Ham is so, so important.”