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In any other season, Antoine Semenyo would not have been allowed to feature for Manchester City in the semi-final of Fizzy Cup due to being “cup-tied” after playing for Bournemouth in their August defeat to Brentford. Luckily for Semenyo, a change to the rules meant that Manchester City’s shiny new £65m winger is allowed to have a second crack at Fizzy Cup, because he was signed before the first leg of the semi-final, in which he played a starring role to help obliterate holders Newcastle United (a first leg in which Max Alleyne also excelled for City, despite having already represented Watford in the competition earlier this season). Having seen his team clearly benefit from this revolutionary tweak of Fizzy Cup rule 6.4.2, you’d expect Pep Guardiola to be delighted, eh? Oh.
In the aftermath of last night’s weird second leg in which Newcastle had their collective backside handed to them despite creating and missing enough chances to win several matches, Pep decided to ignore the conspicuous upsides of the new rule regarding eligibility and focus instead on what he saw as their inexplicably baffling downside. Specifically the one that states a player can only represent two clubs in Fizzy Cup if he joins the second one before a ball has been kicked in the semi-final. Sadly for Pep, it means his other January acquisition, Marc Guéhi, is now ineligible to play in the final because he didn’t arrive at the Etihad until after City had conquered St James’ Park.
