Aymeric Laporte and Leroy Sane have been included on Manchester City’s 22-man List A squad for this season’s Champions League group stage.
UEFA’s rules state that List A is made up of a maximum of 25 players, two of whom must be goalkeepers.
Of these players, a minimum of eight places are reserved for ‘locally trained players’ – Angelino counts as a locally trained player despite being Spanish because he came through City’s academy.
Laporte and Sane are included on List A despite Sane suffering an ACL injury to his knee and Laporte reportedly damaging cartilage and lateral meniscus – not quite as serious as an ACL – in a challenge with Brighton’s Adam Webster last weekend.
Both are unlikely to play in the group stage but Laporte may be ready to return by January which leaves City having to cope with just two recognised central defenders (Nicolas Otamendi and John Stones who is due to return from a thigh injury), until at least the opening of the January transfer window.
City are at their limit of 17 foreign players, though, and may have to sell before bringing in an additional defender unless that defender is English or Premier League club trained.
Before the transfer window closed they were reportedly targeting Bournemouth defender Nathan Ake who, despite being Dutch, would count as a club trained player having come up through Chelsea’s ranks.
City boss Pep Guardiola also turned down a move for Harry Maguire on budgetary reasons.
But Guardiola declared that he had options though – including moving Fernandinho back intro central defence, moving Kyle Walker over to centre back or fielding youngsters Eric Garcia and Taylor Harwood-Bellis.
Both of the latter players are included on City’s List B squad along with Phil Foden.
The 19-year-old England U21 midfielder qualifies for List B because he meets the criteria – being born on or after January 1998 and being eligible to play for the club for two uninterrupted years since his 16th birthday.
Manchester City Champions League 2019/20 A List squad
GOALKEEPERS
Ederson
Claudio Bravo
* Scott Carson
DEFENDERS
Joao Cancelo
* Kyle Walker
Nicolas Otamendi
* John Stones
Aymeric Laporte
Benjamin Mendy
Oleksandr Zinchenko
* Angelino
MIDFIELDERS
Kevin De Bruyne
Ilkay Gundogan
Rodrigo
David Silva
Bernardo Silva
Fernandinho
FORWARDS
Sergio Aguero
Gabriel Jesus
Leroy Sane
* Raheem Sterling
Riyad Mahrez
* Denotes locally trained player