The Arsenal u21s face Cardiff City in the EFL Trophy on Tuesday night, but it’s likely to be a much-changed side with the potential for injured first-team players to feature.
Arsenal are set to play against Cardiff City in their final EFL Trophy group game on Tuesday night, but they’ll be without quite a lot of academy players for the match.
Jeorge Bird highlights for Arsenal Youth that Brayden Clarke, Demiane Agustien, Marli Salmon, Callan Hamill, Khari Ranson, Jack Porter, Kyran Thompson, Ceadach O’Neill, Max Dowman, and Tommy Setford are all unavailable due to their international commitments.
That leaves various selection issues, perhaps most notably that Alexei Rojas and Remy Mitchell appear to be the only goalkeepers available to play. The pair have a combined 47 minutes on the pitch for Arsenal in the last 18 months.
It’s certainly not ideal, and Arsenal have struggled with the scheduling throughout this competition so far. Whilst the other two group games weren’t scheduled during international breaks, they were both placed in the same midweek as first-team League Cup matches.
Top academy players like Dowman may well have featured in the EFL Trophy if they’d been able to, but he was unavailable after being called up for the League Cup. The same was true for Andre Harriman-Annous in the u21s’ last EFL Trophy game.
But the one potential boost for the team is that Arsenal could use the fixture to give some minutes to their injured senior players. Noni Madueke is perhaps the most likely candidate, given he was almost fit for the Sunderland game last weekend.
Though Arsenal are technically fielding an u21 side, teams are permitted to use five over-age outfield players and one over-age goalkeeper in the squad. So the Gunners could call up any of their injured stars in need of minutes on Tuesday night.
In terms of Arsenal’s chances in the competition, the Gunners currently lead the group, but only on goals scored. They have the same points total and the same goal difference as Cardiff who are bottom of the group.
A draw would only be enough if Arsenal win the subsequent penalty shootout to earn a bonus point. A win would certainly send the team through, and a defeat would send them out. It’s effectively a knockout match already.