After the joy of welcoming multiple new signings during the January transfer window, Manchester City, Tottenham Hotspur and Aston Villa now face a headache when it comes to their winter signings.
That is because, under UEFA rules, clubs playing in Europe can only register a maximum three new players into their knockout stage squad from their league phase roster.
And they don’t have long to decide which ones, with the deadline to register those players coming up on Thursday February 6 at midnight.
That is a problem for those three teams, especially Pep Guardiola’s City – who were the Premier League’s biggest spenders with four new permanent additions, to the tune of £176.1m.
Villa are also affected by this, with five new arrivals in January – including three loan signings. One of them was Marcus Rashford, arguably the most high-profile move in the transfer window.
The UEFA rules also impact Spurs, who made three January signings – but their situation is further damaged by an injury crisis and a lack of homegrown players in their squad.
Take a look at the dilemma that those three teams have regarding their squad registration for the European knockout rounds…
What are the rules?
Right, let’s get the boring rules out the way. Back in September, clubs competing in Europe filed a registration list for the league phases of their respective competitions. The registration is made up of two lists. List A and List B.
List B doesn’t really affect Man City, Spurs or Villa here but if you’re interested, it is mainly made up of youth players.
Players in this list were aged 21 or under at the start of the season and have been registered to the club for three straight, uninterrupted years from the age of 15. And there are no limitations on how many of these players you can have, or when you can register them,.
But when it comes to List A – that’s where the main players are. No club can have more than 25 players on List A during the season – and at least two must be goalkeepers. On top of that, eight of those 25 players must be ‘locally trained’.
What does that mean? At least four players must have been on the books of the club for three years between the ages of 15 and 21. The rest can be made up of home-grown players fitting into the same category, but they may have played for another club from the same league.
Teams must select ‘locally trained’ players as part of their Champions League squad, such as Phil Foden
If you fail to meet that quota, your squad size is trimmed. For example, if you’re two ‘locally trained’ players short, then you can only have 23 players in your List A squad, instead of 25.
We know, this is getting very complicated. But stay with us as that ‘locally trained’ bit is important, especially when it comes to Spurs.
The main crux is, clubs are only allowed to register a maximum of three new eligible players after the completion of the league phase and before the start of the knockout phase. There are some exceptions where more new players are allowed to be registered. The first is for teams whose domestic season start and end in the same calendar year.
The other is if a club sells a large amount of players before the knockout phase. UEFA only allows four new players to be registered if more than five players in the squad for the group stage have left, and five additions if more than seven have left.
Still with us? Let’s see what this all means.
How does this affect Man City, Spurs and Villa?
Let’s start with Manchester City. They signed five new first-team players to register in January and you don’t need A-Level maths to know five does not go into three.
Nico Gonzalez, Abdukodir Khusanov, Vitor Reis and Omar Marmoush were all signed in the last month, while City also have Claudio Echeverri – signed from River Plate last year – joining up later this month. All of them would need to go into List A.
Omar Marmoush was one of four major signings by Manchester City this past month
But not enough City players from List A left the club to account for all five being registered. So Guardiola has some thinking to do. Which two does he leave out for Champions League games only?
Now Aston Villa’s situation is different. They signed five players in January but crucially also let six players from their List A leave the club at the same time – Jhon Duran, Emiliano Buendia, Kostas Nedeljkovic, Jaden Philogene and Diego Carlos and Joe Gauci.
That means, under the rules above, they can register four players out of Rashford, Donyell Malen, Andres Garcia, Marco Asensio and Axel Disasi. One, however, will have to miss out.
Could Marcus Rashford be left out of Aston Villa’s Champions League squad?
Tottenham Hotspur, meanwhile, is more complicated. They failed to meet the homegrown quota at the start of the season, because they only named two ‘locally trained’ players in Brandon Austin and Alfie Whiteman. They needed at least four.
As a result, because they were two players short, they named a squad of just 23 players for the Europa League league phase. That meant Djed Spence and Sergio Reguilon were not named in their league phase squad.
Like Man City, Spurs can only register three new players into their knockout stage squad and they could pick their three January signings in Kevin Danso, Antonin Kinsky and Mathys Tel. But they would need to replace current players in the Spurs squad, as their current 23-player roster is full.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Sky Sports News reporter Eleanor Roper reveals that Tottenham Hotspur have completed the loan signing of Mathys Tel until the end of the season and will have the option to buy him in the summer
Radu Dragusin is likely to be unregistered given his long-term injury, Fraser Forster‘s place is under threat from Kinsky as Austin and Whiteman must stay in for home-grown reasons. Beyond that, a third recognised first-team player may have to make way for signing No 3.
But with so many injuries at the back, should they also pick someone like Spence, who has impressed as a back-up in recent weeks? If so, either another first-team Spurs player misses our or one or more of their January signings will miss out on playing Europa League football in the latter rounds.
Does this affect their Premier League registration?
Not really. There is no limit to how many players you can register or unregister before the post-January window deadline, providing you stick to the rules.
A maximum of 25 players can be named in the Premier League squad list, and eight of those players must be home grown, under the same home grown rules as UEFA.
On top of that, Under-21 players do not have to be in that 25-player squad, they are automatically registered on another list – kind of like List B with UEFA.
Clubs must submit their squad list after the January transfer window closes, normally in the week after the market shuts.
But that’s enough regulations for one day, don’t you think?
