FA rules will ban Newcastle United & Liverpool players for Carabao Cup final - on one condition

Liverpool have just been hit with a charge and fined £50,000 by the Football Association after failing to ensure ‘players and/or technical area occupants did not behave in an improper and/or provocative way following the final whistle’. Head coach Arne Slot face a two-match touchline ban as a result which he will serve the first match of against Newcastle at Anfield on Wednesday evening.

The Premier League encounter comes less than three weeks before the Carabao Cup final between Liverpool and Newcastle United at Wembley Stadium on Sunday, March 16 (4:30pm kick-off). While Slot will be back in the dugout for that match, any player shown a straight red card in the league match at Anfield on Wednesday night will be suspended for the final.

Newcastle head coach Eddie Howe stressed that he is treating both the league match and Carabao Cup final completely independently from one another despite the potential knock-on impact of the Anfield encounter.

"We need to play close to a perfect game,” Howe said. I think learning from the recent game against Manchester City would be a useful starting point for us, where we didn't execute the aggressive game plan that we wanted. We didn't attack enough.

"Anfield is a really great environment to play football, but not a great environment if you are not totally there. We need to make sure we turn up.

"We are going to need to start the game well - we have to be aggressive, have a threat in the game. We need every bit of our game to be functioning."

What FA rules say about red card suspensions

Any player shown a straight red card for serious foul play or violent conduct must serve a three-match ban across all competitions. Unlike yellow card suspensions, red card suspensions transcend domestic competitions.

So any Newcastle player shown a red card against Liverpool would miss the FA Cup fifth-round match against Brighton & Hove Albion, the Premier League match at West Ham United as well as the Carabao Cup final.

Now we don’t want to tempt fate but Newcastle have previously been on the receiving end of such a suspension picked up against Liverpool the last time they reached the Carabao Cup final back in 2023. Nick Pope was shown a straight red card for a deliberate handball which - although only a one-match ban offence - was enough to suspend him for the final as Newcastle were beaten 2-0 by Manchester United.

Liverpool v Newcastle United - one of the most red-carded fixtures in Premier League history

Another reason both sides should be cautious about their discipline heading into tonight's match is that Liverpool v Newcastle matches have seen the fourth most red cards of any fixture in Premier League history with 16. Liverpool are involved in three of the top four with their encounters with Everton resulting in the most red cards with 25 while their meetings with Manchester United have seen 18 dismissals.

Newcastle’s matches against Merseyside clubs seem to bring out the red cards with The Magpies’ encounters with Everton seeing 17 reds, one ahead of Liverpool.

Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk was the last player to be sent off in a meeting with Newcastle as he was shown a straight red card at St James’ Park in August 2023. Despite Newcastle leading 1-0 at the time, Liverpool came from behind with 10 men to win the match 2-1.

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