Manchester City have already done the sporting work to reach the Carabao Cup final, yet a second contest is taking shape before Wembley.
The club are preparing a formal approach to the EFL in an attempt to make Marc Guéhi eligible for the final against Arsenal on March 22.
At this point of the season, the margin isn’t only measured in form and fitness—sometimes it’s measured in paperwork.
This is the kind of detail that rarely makes the match preview, until it suddenly decides who can be named on it.
The timing rule that separates Semenyo and Guéhi
The difference is not performance, but timing and prior involvement. January signing Antoine Semenyo landed inside the competition’s registration window and remained available across the semi-final tie.
Guéhi arrived later, and he had also featured in this season’s tournament for Crystal Palace—two factors that, under the current interpretation, keep him out of the final.
City’s appeal is essentially a race against an immovable date. The club are asking the competition organisers to reconsider how the rule should apply in a final, where the stakes are highest and the squad is meant to reflect the team’s present reality.
Whether the request goes anywhere will shape more than one selection decision.
It will also test how rigidly cup competitions want to hold their lines in a calendar that now treats January as a second start rather than a mid-season footnote.
Wembley is set—what isn’t set is how the rules will be read when the final arrives.
