Newcastle United loanee Lewis Hall is eligible to face his parent club Chelsea in Tuesday's EFL Cup quarter-final tie at Stamford Bridge.
After nine years at Chelsea, Hall completed a season-long loan move to the Magpies in August which allegedly includes an obligation to buy for an initial £28m plus £7m in add-ons.
The 19-year-old is yet to establish himself as a first-team regular in Eddie Howe's side as he has played for just 240 minutes across seven appearances for Newcastle so far this season.
Hall has started in four of his seven outings, but was taken off at half time on three of those occasions, while his most recent appearance was as a late substitute in Newcastle's 3-0 win over Fulham in the Premier League last weekend.
Howe is expected to freshen up his side as much as he can on Tuesday amid an injury crisis, and Hall is in contention to feature against Chelsea, who are understood to have granted permission for the teenager to play.
Hall was ineligible to face Mauricio Pochettino's side in Newcastle's 4-1 Premier League win over the West Londoners last month, but EFL Cup rules state that players on loan are free to play against their parent club as long as the two teams reach an agreement over their availability.
Speculation over Hall's future at Newcastle has recently surfaced due to the youngster's lack of regular first-team football during the first half of this season.
Newcastle announced back in August that their obligation to buy Hall is "based on performance-related criteria", and it had been suggested that the versatile wideman must make a certain amount of appearances to join the Magpies permanently.
Howe admitted last week that he is "not 100% sure" if Hall's loan move will automatically turn into a permanent deal next summer if the "criteria" is met.
Nevertheless, according to The Telegraph, Hall's future at Newcastle is unrelated to the number of appearances he makes this season and the nature of the criteria the teenager is required to meet is yet to be confirmed.
Hall will be pushing to start in Tuesday's quarter-final as either a left-back or left-winger as Newcastle endeavour to follow up impressive wins over Manchester City and Manchester United in the previous two rounds with success over Chelsea in their quest to reach the semi-finals.
Howe has refused to rule out the prospect of defender Sven Botman starting for the Magpies against Chelsea, but Fabian Schar, Joelinton and Alexander Isak are all doubtful and will be assessed ahead of kickoff. body check tags ::
