Manuel Pellegrini not taking Capital One Cup lightly
Manuel Pellegrini could give chances to a couple of Manchester City's youngsters against Crystal Palace but insists the Capital One Cup remains a priority for the club.
Teenage forwards Kelechi Iheanacho, who scored the winner against Palace in the Premier League, and summer signing Patrick Roberts are among those in contention to feature on Wednesday evening as City continue to deal with injuries.
Manager Pellegrini insists the involvement of young prospects is an attempt to develop stars of the future and is not a shift in the big-spending club's policy.
He said: "I don't think it's a change in direction. The development of young players is always important.
"It's not easy when you have a strong squad to give them a chance but in the way that they demonstrate they are good players, of course it is very important for our club to try to bring players from the academy to the first team.
"It must be linked with the quality of the player that you have in the squad, not just put the young players in if you think they cannot be the future players of this team."
The competition brought the Chilean his first trophy in England and he said: "When you play the final of a cup at Wembley with 90,000 people, I think it's always a very important cup."
Sergio Aguero, David Silva, Samir Nasri, Gael Clichy and Fabian Delph will all sit out the tie through injury while Fernandinho is suspended.
Pallegrini's opposite number Alan Pardew has decisions to make over his strikeforce.
Dwight Gayle is available following suspension, having been sent off in the loss to West Ham and missed the defeat to Leicester which followed.
He will compete for a place with Fraizer Campbell and the on-loan Patrick Bamford, with Marouane Chamakh and Connor Wickham sidelined by hamstring and calf injuries respectively.
Back-to-back defeats have sapped some of the momentum of Palace's flying start to the season - and with the City tie followed by a Premier League clash with Manchester United, they face a tough task to get back to winning ways.
But Pardew said: "They're good games for us. Man City and Man United.
"We look forward to those and hopefully (we can) get ourselves a win."
Source: PAR
