Claude Puel sees no reason to change his approach to the EFL Cup despite drawing Liverpool in the semi-finals.

The Saints boss continued his rotation policy in the competition last night to great effect as his side secured a 2-0 win at Arsenal to book a two-legged tie against the Reds in the last four.

Puel made a raft of changes to his side, and even left the likes of Charlie Austin, Oriol Romeu, Jose Fonte and Nathan Redmond back at home.

Even with Wembley on the horizon, the Saints boss indicated he will be prepared to change things around again come the Liverpool ties if it suits.

“I don’t know my first team,” he insisted. “Since the beginning of the season I am lucky because we can have different players for every position and very good players.

“I don’t want to say that yes this 11 players is my first team and the others the second team. We have many very good players.

“We have a very good squad and we improve with all the players and all the players can play with different qualities.

“You can see for example Sofiane Boufal can make a very good first half and this is very interesting for other games and other possibilities.

“It is a strength of the team with different players keeping the same identity of game.

“It is important to continue. We have not time to think of other things, just our game against Crystal Palace and we must stay quiet.

“It’s a very good performance but it’s finished and now we must recover and prepare things for an important game in the Premier League.”

Arsenal made ten changes to their team, but Saints’ much altered side was comfortably better.

“For me it’s a great performance because all the squad of Arsenal is with very good players,” reflected Puel.

“Arsenal is the same philosophy to us.

“We can change also six or seven different players and stay at home were Romeu, Fonte, Redmond and other players on the bench.

“The two teams move the play at the start with young players and it’s important to respect this for Arsenal and for us.

“Just for us it was a strong game with a good solidarity and it was important to qualify and to improve with these young players and to have all the other games.

“It’s important for all the players to have games and to have good work.”

Puel also praised centre half Maya Yoshida, who was drafted into the side again and did a solid job.

“Not just at this moment but since the beginning of the season he can do very good games every time in different competitions and in different games he is very strong,” said Puel.

“For me with Fonte and Yoshida and the under-21s also, we have four strong centre backs and this very important for all these competitions and very important for Southampton.

“We have strong and technical players with calm and self-control and I find he has improved since the beginning of the season with good personality and calm and very regular and it’s very interesting.”