In a recent interview with the club’s official website, Southampton manager Claude Puel has revealed that he will be utilising the younger players in the squad for Wednesday’s EFL Cup clash against Sunderland.

We have injuries to Ryan Bertrand, (Matt) Targett, (Cedric) Soares, Jérémy Pied and, after that, all the squad is available, but some players will stay at the training ground to recover and to give chances for other players and younger players to start in the team.

Saints have a massively busy schedule with the Premier League, Europa League and other cup competitions to worry about, so it comes as no surprise to see Puel looking to use the plethora of young options he has at his disposal.

Playing every three days is very hard, of course, for the squad, but it will be interesting, because it can develop the players and we can take pleasure to play all these games.

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Players like Virgil van Dijk, Charlie Austin and Oriol Romeu have been playing big roles in recent times so it can be expected that they, like other key first-team players, will be getting much-deserved rests.

Sunderland are set to make changes to their side also but will be limited due to the size of their squad being significantly smaller than Saints’, largely because of an ongoing injury crisis at the club.

Players like Harrison Reed, Jack Stephens and James Ward-Prowse will all look to play a part tomorrow.