UEFA Champions League squads: Why Manchester City, Aston Villa and AC Milan left newly acquired players out

With the UEFA Champions League about to enter its knockout phase next week after the final round of league phase play last week, Europe’s top clubs had big decisions to make regarding who would be registered once the January transfer window closed. Now that the winter business is out of the way, those decisions have been communicated to European soccer’s governing body and we now know what those final squads look like.

As a reminder, teams were able to make up to three changes to what is known as their ‘A’ squad list, which is their main senior group of players. Some talented youngsters can qualify separately via the ‘B’ list so that they are eligible for UEFA Youth League as well as UCL duty and A lists are allowed to be as large as 25 players. Two of those 25 players, at least, must be goalkeepers with a further eight locally trained although a youth goalkeeper can help to tick both of those boxes. B list players must be born on or after 1 June 2003 and can only qualify if they can show that they spent an uninterrupted spell of two years at the club on youth terms.

So, which big names have missed out?

Vitor Reis (Manchester City)

Pep Guardiola has kept Rodri on his UCL list despite his injury so it was simply a question of which new signings would make the cut for the Citizens. Omar Marmoush, Nico Gonzalez and Abdukodir Khusanov have all been included while Vitor Reis is the unlucky one who misses out ahead of next week’s playoff clash vs. Real Madrid. The Brazilian was a $36.2m January arrival, but the rules dictate that somebody had to miss out.

Donyell Malen (Aston Villa)

With Marcus Rashford, Axel Disasi and Marco Asensio also joining in the winter business period, Unai Emery had a similarly difficult call to make for his Premier League outfit, who are directly into the round of 16. Jhon Duran, Emi Buendia and Diego Carlos all left in January but Rashford, Disasi and Asensio replace the key elements of Duran while boosting an injury-hit defense and adding major European experience and a potential new wide man to put the likes of Leon Bailey under pressure to perform.

Warren Bondo and Riccardo Sottil (Milan)

The Rossoneri were busy this January and were only allowed to add three players which meant that two new arrivals were always going to miss out this edition. The two in question are Warren Bondo and Riccardo Sottil with Kyle Walker, Santiago Gimenez and Joao Felix all major additions to Sergio Conceicao’s squad ahead of their first leg next week against Feyenoord in the playoffs.

Giorgio Scalvini (Atalanta)

Sadly for the Italy international, injury made this a fairly straightforward decision for Gian Piero Gasperini ahead of their clash with Club Brugge. January signings Daniel Maldini and Stefan Posch are included along with Ibrahim Sulemana who was missing from the league phase list. Nicolo Zaniolo and Ben Godfrey are also out along with Scalvini because both moved clubs this winter.

Alberto Costa (Juventus)

Thiago Motta has made a handful of changes to his Old Lady squad for the knockout phase ahead of their meetings with PSV Eindhoven. Renato Veiga, Lloyd Kelly and Randal Kolo Muani are all in while Danilo, Arthur Melo and Nicolo Fagioli have dropped out. Motta opted to overlook new signing Alberto Costa after his arrival from Vitoria Guimaraes.

Tajon Buchanan (Inter)

The Nerazzurri made one solitary change to their UCL squad with Tajon Buchanan leaving for Villarreal in Spain and being replaced by winter addition Nicola Zalewski. The 25-year-old Canada international is on loan in LaLiga and could return to Serie A with Inter but he will not be able to play any further part this season.