The kids are all right, but team comes first

Peter Grant says he will put team considerations before the clamour to include teenagers Michael Spillane and Rossi Jarvis in his starting line-up against Sheffield Wednesday.

Spillane and Jarvis started the Carling Cup tie at Manchester City in midweek and earned rave reviews for their performances.

But while many supporters will inevitably hope to see the two on City's team-sheet, Grant is refusing to give any guarantees.

“At the next level you have to be comfortable on the ball and both of them are that, so I was very, very pleased with them - but yet again, Sheffield Wednesday is a different game and that is the way I look at every game, individually, and assess what we have got available and pick the best team for that particular game and that is what I will look at,” said Grant.

“I know they are comfortable in possession, but the biggest thing for me is making sure the team is right.”

Grant had lost midfielder Julien Brellier to suspension on Tuesday and then found himself without Darren Huckerby, because of an ankle injury sustained in training on Monday.

But he said Jarvis and Spillane had been under orders to be prepared for inclusion and that Huckerby's absence was not a catalyst for either of them to play.

“There were certain things in the game the other night that both of the boys were playing anyway before Hucks pulled out,” he said. “They knew that so it is not as if they were both put in because Darren was out.

“I had said to both Michael and Rossi two or three weeks ago to be ready because it was getting to that stage where I felt they could offer me something that I wasn't being offered on the pitch.

“Sometimes the timing of it is important for them - if you put them all in together when you are not playing as well and as fluent as you would like to do, sometimes it becomes a little bit more difficult for them and then they get judged on their performances and it is not necessarily them.

“I feel in the middle of the pitch I have not had the right balance there, I genuinely feel that - we have not taken care enough of the ball, and I thought the other evening we did that very well and both the boys were a big, big part of that.”