Eddie Howe gave an assessment of his squad choices ahead of the Carabao Cup third round tie with Blackburn Rovers on Tuesday night.
The AFC Bournemouth manager has often rotated his squad in the competition, including in the 3-0 win over MK Dons in the last round, but says the Premier League loss to Burnley at the weekend could come into his thinking.
“We’ll look at the team and try and make the right calls,” he said in his pre-match press conference. “We have players who are desperate to play and get an opportunity.
“We need to make the right call and we want to progress. It’s a home game and we want to entertain the home supporters, we’ll make the best decision possible.
“No matter the run of results you want players who put the air hands up and want to play, it’s an opportunity for those players to play and show what they can do.”
Howe has a trio of his squad sidelined through injury, while Junior Stanislas made his first team comeback on Saturday after not playing since late March due to a knee injury.
Howe explained: “We’re okay, Charlie Daniels is still out, Dan Gosling and Kyle Taylor will miss out too, other than that I think we’re okay.
“We’ll wait and see with Junior Stanislas and whether he features.
“We won’t underestimate Blackburn in any way, as we didn’t for MK Dons, we know we’ll have to play well to get through.”
The game comes three days after the defeat at Burnley, and the manager commented that the chance to bounce back from that disappointment is important.
“We’re looking forward to getting back into action and looking forward to having the chance to respond,” he said.
