There can't be many under-18 sides preparing for this week's FA Youth Cup third round who have lost half their team to FIFA Club World Cup call-ups.

Manchester City begin their Youth Cup campaign this week, but will travel to Watford in the third round without a number of regulars after a disjointed week of preparations.

With the under-21 side playing in the Premier League 2 on Sunday, it was decided that nobody who was eligible would be playing in that game against Norwich and also the Youth Cup clash with Watford. Usually, the close integration between the EDS and under-18s would make such an arrangement work out fine, but Pep Guardiola has thrown an unintentional spanner in the works by calling up six academy players to take to Saudi Arabia this week.

ALSO READ: Pep Guardiola details Club World Cup danger for Man City and sends warning to squad

ALSO READ: Pep Guardiola and Bernardo Silva respond to new Man City Club World Cup schedule

MEN Sport revealed on Monday that City have taken six academy players to Saudi Arabia to supplement the first-team squad for their Club World Cup campaign this week, with four of those youngsters eligible to play in the Youth Cup. Of the other two, they would have been scheduled to play for the under-21s on Sunday, while Mahamadou Susoho was unavailable for that game after featuring on the bench for City in the Premier League on Saturday.

Add injuries and other minor inconveniences due to the schedule, and City won't take their strongest side to Vicarage Road on Tuesday, where a strong crowd is expected.

"We're a bit thin on the ground, but hopefully we've got enough to put a good performance on and try and get through," says under-18 head coach Ben Wilkinson. "We've watched Watford a bit and they'll be a good test for us."

Forward-turned-midfielder Jaden Heskey, who is available, noted: "The preparation has been a bit weird. The first team have the Saudi Arabia trip for the Club World Cup so they've taken three or four of our players, so that's made the preparation a bit different. We've still got a good squad, though, so we'll put out a good team."

There is a desire inside the academy to put last season's heartbreaking semi-final defeat at Arsenal behind them, using that experience as fuel this year, as a number of players who were left devastated at the Emirates are still involved in this year's youth team.

City had fallen a goal down seven minutes in when Lakyle Samuel saw red and Arsenal scored from the resulting free-kick. Justin Oboavwoduo's equaliser sent the game to extra time, where penalties loomed following a heroic effort, until a 120th-minute winner for the hosts sent them through to the final - 113 minutes after City were reduced to ten men.

"Last season we got to the semis and ended up losing at Arsenal. It was a tough game, I think we deserved to win," Heskey says. "But this season we want to go all the way."

Wilkinson agreed. "To lose in a semi-final in that way, playing with ten men for 115 minutes was tough to take, but a lot of those players will be involved again," he said. "We feel we've got a really strong group this year and a lot of these players have been here for a long time and played together for a long time. They'll be aware that it won't go on forever, they're really desperate to win it.

"As a club we said in recent years we've done so well as an academy but not quite done as well as we'd like in the Youth Cup and Youth League. Hopefully we can address that this year."

If winning the cup competitions has been missing from the academy's long list of successes, they have instead been good at providing more and more players for the first team, and also raising tens of millions for the club in transfer sales. That is ultimately the goal of the academy - although the more successful they are in the transfer market, there are knock-on effects down the age groups.

When players leave for the senior squad or elsewhere, that means younger players have to step up, and with academy coaches intentionally pushing youngsters into higher age groups where possible, the obvious drawbacks of that are the inconsistent results that come with less experience.

"We always like to progress in those because it gives us an opportunity to see the players in knockout football under a bit more pressure," he said. "It's the arenas we need to see them in. We've done well in those competitions, especially the younger players.

"We've tried in the last few years to make the under-18s an under-17 squad. And if you look at the under-21s, there are 11 or 12 under-18 players this year. We do that out of choice to stretch the players as much as possible. If and when appropriate we accelerate their development for the next step as well in terms of going out on loan or sales.

"It's intentional, but because of that strategy, it can leave us short at times. We have injuries or players with the first team, which we know is a possibility can happen, but we have to deal with it rather than trying to top our squad with more players if they're not at the level we need."

City will hope their depleted squad at Watford can show enough to reach the next round of the Youth Cup, where those involved at the Club World Cup will be back, injuries will hopefully have cleared up, and the fixture list may be a little kinder. Then, they should be hard to stop.