“You buy a player for a lot of money and he is not able to play for a rule I don’t understand. Hopefully they can change it,” Pep Guardiola said, calling on the EFL to amend eligibility rules so new signing Marc Guehi can feature in the Carabao Cup final at Wembley.
City’s other January signing, winger Antoine Semenyo, arrived from Bournemouth four days before the first-leg trip to the north east against Newcastle and was able to play — he even scored. “Antoine arrived before the first [game] so could play. And now it’s the final. Why should he [Guehi] not play? Why not? We pay his salary, he is our player,” Guardiola added.
“I said to the club, they have to ask, definitely. I don’t understand the reason why he cannot play in the final in March, when I have been here for a long time.
“The rules to buy a player depends on Fifa, Uefa, the Premier League who say, OK the transfer window is open, when you buy a player you have to play, no? It’s logic. Of course we are going to try to ask [for] him to play. Pure logic.”
Asked what he thought the answer would be from the EFL, Guardiola replied: “No. But we will try.”
City have already benefited this season from a rule change allowing players to appear for two teams in the same competition, rather than being cup-tied. That adjustment permitted Semenyo and Max Alleyne to play in the semi-finals despite having featured for Bournemouth and Watford respectively in earlier rounds.
