Centre-back Lubo Satka, right-back Jamie Sterry and battling midfielder Olivier Kemen are all in the squad for Everton with injuries cutting into Carver’s squad. But he knows about the dangers of throwing them in at the deep end.
When asked about the risk of playing youngsters on the Premier League stage, Carver told the Chronicle: “I will give you an example – we played Leicester away and I had many people saying to me we should have played Freddie Woodman. He’s going to be a top goalkeeper, no danger of that.
“We’ve all seen how good he is. If I’d have stuck him in at 17 and we lost by more, his world could have come tumbling down.
“I could have knocked him back six or 12 months or even his career by putting him in a situation that was unnecessary.
“So any young player, and I learned this from Sir Bob, that is good enough and strong enough to deal with it - not a problem.
“Anybody who you might have a little doubt about, because it might effect their long-term future, I wouldn’t consider it.
“I use Freddie as an example because by not playing him, he’s then been on the bench a few times and trained with the first team in the last three months.
“Now he will be ready for it. We have let Jak Alnwick go to Bradford on loan.
“I am confident enough now that if anything happened to Tim or Rob Elliot that I would say ‘Go on Freddie.”