Unai Emery will need his first team to be on the ball on Saturday against Liverpool, so he has made it clear that he will be using some youngsters for tonight’s Carabao Cup match against Blackpool. He told Arsenal.com: “We will choose 18 players for the Blackpool match, the young players also. We are going to have a mix in order to get the best performance against Blackpool, to respect them. For us, the Carabao Cup is very important. It’s an opportunity to win a trophy and for tomorrow, a chance to play in front of our supporters at Emirates Stadium in this competition.”
The youngsters that are most likely to feature tonight are Emile Smith Rowe, Eddie Nketiah, Joe Willock and Julio Pleguezuelo, who were all absent from Freddie Ljungberg’s U21’s who were soundly beaten by Cheltenham last night. The first three are regularly featured in League Cup games, but Plezuguelo is maybe more likely to start the game as he is a centre-back or right back for the U23’s. The Spaniard captained our U21’s to win the Premier League 2 title and has had loan periods at Mallorca and Tarragones. Also now that Maitland-Niles has returned to fitness he should feature this evening.
The question is; Will Emery use them all right from the start?
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