Injury-hit City, Reds to rotate sides for Cup
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LONDON • Injuries dictate wholesale changes for Manchester City and Liverpool ahead of their third-round ties in the League Cup today.
English Premier League clubs have traditionally used the competition to blood youth team players and ensure those on the fringe get game time under their belt.
While there is still a trophy to be won, the Cup ranks lowest on the list of priorities for both City and Liverpool, with the top-flight action and the Champions League taking equal importance followed by the FA Cup.
Pep Guardiola's men travel to league leaders Chelsea on Saturday in a game that is already looking like a must-win just five games into the new season, given the Blues' ominous form.
With that in mind, the Catalan claimed that the League Cup holders, who have won the competition for four successive campaigns, "do not have another alternative" but to ring the changes for today's clash at the Etihad against League One side Wycombe.
"We are going to play a few young players. Some first-team players but some players must rest for the three games we have ahead of us," the Catalan said.
"A few players from the academy are going to play because we have John (Stones), Ayme (Laporte), Aleks (Zinchenko), Rodri, (Ilkay) Gundogan, all of them injured.
"Ruben (Dias) played all the minutes, Joao (Cancelo) played all the minutes (on Saturday), so I don't think they will be able to play in this game."
However, such is City's strength in depth that Kevin de Bruyne, Phil Foden, Ferran Torres and Riyad Mahrez were all on the bench against Southampton and it is unlikely that today's third-tier visitors will pose much of a threat to the English champions.
Liverpool's next league game is less tricky than City - they face Brentford away on Saturday - but assistant manager Pepijn Lijnders yesterday confirmed that there will be heavy rotation for today's game at Norwich.
The Reds have already thrashed the Canaries in the season-opening league game but it will be a different squad to the one that turned out at Carrow Road last month.
Stating academy graduate midfielder Curtis Jones would start, Lijnders said: "We want to compete with a certain style of football, we want to press and be offensive and dominant and control the game.
"If you want to play like this, you need fresh legs, fresh minds and energisers on the pitch and that's what we try and do. To understand team selection, you need to understand our ways.
"For us, it's an important competition despite what people are saying because we want to introduce new talent and we have this group of players who want to become proper legends, we really look forward to this."
The Dutchman also revealed Thiago Alcantara would miss both the Norwich and Brentford games after picking up an injury over the weekend, while Trent Alexander-Arnold is sidelined due to illness not related to Covid-19. Roberto Firmino and Harvey Elliot also miss out owing to injury.
REUTERS
NORWICH V LIVERPOOL
Singtel TV Ch111, tomorrow, 2.40am
MAN CITY V WYCOMBE
Singtel TV Ch113, tomorrow, 2.40am
