“Why” what?

Why field senior players in this competition? Primarily because we don’t have a reserve team or any other competition for fringe players to play in.

I don’t really understand the antipathy to these midweek filler competitions. It’s not as if it’s compulsory to attend & watch.
And also not as if players never get injured in training.

We don’t have to play 4 starters from Saturday. We have to start 4 ‘qualifying players’ and there are several additional criteria for ‘qualifying player’ in addition to just those who started the previous match.

My starting 11 for tonight would be:

Donaghy

Sutton
Simeu
Olson
Leake

Drummond
Payne
O’Grady-Mackenzie
Hawkes

Quigley
Harratt

Payne qualifies since, with Woods suspended, he is presumably going to start next weekend. Sutton qualifies as a ‘first team’ player since he has started more than 40 matches for the club.
And I believe the two Blackburn loanees qualify because they come from a club with an EFL category one academy.

By all means fill the bench with youngsters and bring a few of them on for 20 or 30 minutes, or as needed.