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Involving Premier League clubs in the EFL Trophy has never been a popular idea – but what happens when those same clubs cannot name their best team, and have to call on the reserves?
This season’s Bristol Street Motors Trophy could lose yet more credence in these parts tonight as a Bolton Wanderers side stripped of six international players takes on Aston Villa’s Under-21s, themselves without several top players on duty with their country.
The timing of this second round of group games, like first, comes in the midst of an international break, making the process of picking a team and adhering to the guidelines on team selection that bit tougher for Evatt and his staff.
“The argument for the competition itself from the EFL has always been to pick strong teams and that is why they put these selection rules in place, to make sure that happens,” he said.
“But when you play during international windows and Under-21s – especially the Category Ones – are going to have a lot of internationals away, and we have so many away, it is difficult to take it seriously and do the best we can.
“Fortunately for us we have a free weekend and we can regroup and refresh but those same lads have put some big shifts in with some long trips, long away journeys, and the second half will probably take a lot out of us from Saturday too, so it isn’t ideal.
“Football is very topical in football at the moment and where we fit these games in out of the window I don’t know, so it isn’t an easy thing to solve.”
As they have done for the last few seasons, Wanderers will use the group stages of the competition to keep some of their first team players ticking over, a policy which has seen them score plenty of goals against the PL2 teams involved.
An 8-1 hammering of Manchester United’s kids raised some eyebrows last season but Villa have also drafted in some of their senior stars to bump up the numbers, something Evatt says he may have to react to on the night.
“I don’t think Ross Barkley will be involved in this one because he played Sunday,” he said. “But Buendia played their last game against Fleetwood and Jacob Ramsey came on too, although I think he is injured at the moment.
“Tyrone Mings played 45 minutes for the reserves the other day, so potentially he could be involved but basically we have to prepare as best we can with the bodies we have got and see where it takes us.
“We’ll prepare seriously as we would for every game and then try to get a result.”
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