Arsenal do not yet know whether summer signing David Raya will be eligible to face parent club Brentford in the Carabao Cup.
The Gunners were drawn against Thomas Frank’s side for the third round of the League Cup last night, and this has raised a very interesting point about who will start in goal.
Raya made a surprise transfer to Arsenal over the summer, on an initial loan with an option to buy making the deal worth around £30m overall, but he is yet to feature, with Aaron Ramsdale still Mikel Arteta’s number one option.
It seems that Raya will have to wait for the Carabao Cup and Champions League games to finally make his debut and fight for his place, but he may not even be able to play in the Carabao Cup tie as anticipated thanks to an under-the-radar rule.
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In the Premier League, loan players are not allowed to face their parent clubs. However, in the domestic cups, they will be allowed to feature if their clubs give them permission, as per Carabao Cup rule 6.3.
“Players registered on a temporary basis will not be eligible to play unless the Club holding his full registration gives its written consent.”
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This means that if Brentford do not give Arsenal permission to play Raya, he will have to sit out the League Cup tie against the club for whom he has made 161 appearances.
Good relations
Arsenal and Brentford are on seemingly good terms, with the Bees agreeing to this current structure of the Raya transfer, which is very favourable as Arsenal will not have to pay the bulk of the fee until next summer.
Given the amicable way in which the two clubs agreed the deal in the first place, Brentford may not see it in their own interest to deny Raya the opportunity to play and Arsenal the ability to play him.
The loan move becomes permanent once Raya hits a certain number of appearances, and Brentford could be doing themselves a disservice if they refuse to give him permission to play in the cup.