Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola admits he does not want to “waste energy” in the Carabao Cup.
City claimed their place in the fourth round with a largely comfortable 2-1 win over Watford at the Etihad Stadium on Tuesday.
Guardiola made nine changes for the tie, which came just two days after Sunday’s controversial and draining clash with Arsenal, and he admits the competition is well down his list of priorities.
He said: “I would say the next round, we are going to play the players at the last minute or play the second team.
“We’re not going to waste energy for this competition for sure. I don’t know what’s going to happen.
“If I have a lot of injuries, I’m going to play the second team, but we will have all the squad ready and it’s a good competition (for some players) to take the rhythm, that’s for sure.”
First-half goals from Jeremy Doku and Matheus Nunes ultimately proved enough for City, who dominated throughout and created a plethora of chances, to see off the Championship Hornets.
Tom Ince did give the visitors late hope with a fine strike in the 86th minute but it proved only consolation.
Watford boss Tom Cleverley was frustrated to concede the opener to Doku after just five minutes but felt his side gave a good account of themselves thereafter.
He said: “As a coach, there’s not much you can do about giving the ball away in such an easy circumstance, and you fear the worst after that.
“But it’s not something that I want to focus on. The objective was to be more resilient and, although not in the first five minutes, I thought we showed backbone and real resilience, to value the art of defending today.
“We can take belief that we pushed the best team in the world all the way.
“I made nine changes and it showed that everyone’s ready to step up. Those players wanted to show the best version of themselves tonight and they certainly did that, to give me some good problems for the weekend.”
