José Mourinho has withdrawn his threat to field Chelsea's under-21 development side in Tuesday's Capital One Cup fourth-round tie at Arsenal as a protest at being made to play the game 48 hours after the team's most recent Premier League match. Yet the Portuguese will still not select players who featured in Sunday's win over Manchester City.

The Chelsea manager was incensed to learn that the match at the Emirates would be staged so soon after City's league visit, the Football League pointing to television scheduling having placed it in an awkward position. The London derby was selected for live coverage, as well as City's tie against Newcastle, meaning the games had to be allocated for different midweek nights. Given City played Wigan in the previous round two days after the Manchester derby against United, it was felt it would be fair this time to offer them an extra day's rest.

There are also policing issues, given that Tottenham Hotspur – who had a similar 48-hour schedule in the last round – host Hull City on Wednesday, with the Metropolitan police unwilling to permit both north London sides to play at home on the same night. That had originally prompted Mourinho to threaten to play the youth team at the Emirates, albeit with 26 of his younger players currently out on loan, although he has since indicated the line-up will be similar to that which overcame Swindon Town of League One last month.

The Chelsea manager, confirming his first-choice selection would be granted the evening off, said: "If they want a big game, we cannot give a big game. If they want the players that were playing against Manchester City, we cannot give them that. If they want us not to win a trophy, that's a help, because if they want a big game between two big teams in London they should put the game on Wednesday, not on Tuesday. I'm not going to give them that."

Asked if he would pick the youth team, he added: "No, we have to respect our fans and we discussed that in the club. We have to protect our players too. We cannot put our players playing two matches in three days in October. Arsenal played at 12:45 on Saturday, so they will have had two and a half days to rest and prepare. So yes, I hope they all enjoy it. We are going to try and do our job and we will do our job the best we can."

Mourinho had offered Juan Mata and Kevin De Bruyne game-time at the County Ground, with that approach to selection expected to be maintained at Arsenal. Ryan Bertrand and César Azpilicueta should start at full-back, with Mark Schwarzer in goal and David Luiz, possibly alongside the young Czech Tomas Kalas, at centre-half. The under-used Mata, De Bruyne, Michael Essien, Willian and Mikel John Obi will expect to feature, having failed to start against City, while Demba Ba, who had been close to moving to Arsenal in September, will compete with Samuel Eto'o for a place up front.