Martin Allen plans to use Tuesday night’s Checkatrade Trophy game against Norwich City at The Hive to integrate a few of Barnet’s talented young players.

Checkatrade Trophy rules require EFL League One and League Two teams to name five ‘first team’ players in the starting XI.

The Bees boss says it will be a balance of senior and young players for the game with Saturday’s visit to recently-relegated Doncaster Rovers also in Allen’s thoughts.

"I’ve been watching the young lads and the young lads have been training with us,"  Allen said. "I don’t think it’s any secret that we’ve had quite a lot of niggling injuries recently.

"We’ve got first-team players now who are questionable for the Doncaster Rovers game so we’ve got to rest them. I won’t make any apologies for that, I’ve got to rest them and some young players have to come in.

"Some of our senior players – Michael Nelson and Jamal Campbell-Ryce – have played three games in a week and need to be rested. They get fatigued and they get injuries. We can’t afford any more injuries so some of our young players are going to come in.

"We will have a mix of our senior players and younger players so there should be no surprises when everyone turns up. It’s not the same team. It’s a different group. I need to utilise everyone in our squad.

"I’ve called a couple of players up from the Youth Team. Payney (Joe Payne) everyone knows about and there is another one called Ephron who is a fantastic young player who I’ve had my eye on for a while now."

You can watch Martin Allen’s pre-match interview below.

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