Aston Villa have omitted two stars from the Champions League squad this season, including one new signing.

Aston Villa have submitted their players for the 2026/27 Champions League squad for the league phase, consisting of 23 names, instead of maximum 25 players. Surprisingly, they do not include two of their stars. One of them is even their newly signing they have been chasing lately, as reported in TalkSport.

”Aston Villa have named their squad for the Champions League league phase, but Taylor Harwood-Bellis was not included.The decision has come only days after the centre-back completed his summer move from Southampton.”

What’s more, Emery also opts to leave out Brian Madjo, their 17-year old striker who shone in UEFA Super Cup last month and another youngster, Modou Kebba Cisse.

The reason?

The exclusion of those stars have not been exclusively mentioned yet but it might have been related to their lack of minutes at the top level. Harwood-Bellis was signed from the Championship side, Southampton. Thus, the reason is quite clear since he spent most of his career so far in the second tier team and at the lower table side like Burnley. He did feature once in the Champions League group stage in the 2019/20 season with Manchester City. The defender only played for eight minutes against Dinamo Zagreb.

Meanwhile, Madjo and Modou Cisse are simply still in need of playing more regularly at the top level. Madjo might have been impressive in UEFA Super Cup but he needs to display positive consistency on the pitch. The same goes for the Senegalese young defender. They might be included in List B squad with other youngsters.

They all could still be included in the squad for the knockout phase when the team can make changes next year. Any of them would not have to wait longer if any of the players in the squad have to be sidelined from minimum 60 days. They could be registered as their replacement.

The rules and Villa’s squad for UCL

The regulation for UCL squad are as follows:

• There are List A (the main squad) and List B (the reserve squad)
• List A consists of 25 players maximum with at least two goalkeepers while List B has no limit in numbers with at least one goalkeeper in it.
• List A must include eight homegrown players or locally trained ones.
• Among those eight homegrown players, only maximum four names can be association- trained ones. They are players who are trained in the different club from their current team but still in the same association.

Here are the list of 23 names included in the squad, alongside with their shirt number.

Goalkeepers

1 – Zion Suzuki (JPN, 24)

40 – Marco Bizot (NED, 35)

42 – James Wright (ENG, 21)

Defenders

2 – Matty Cash (POL, 29)

3 – Victor Lindelöf (SWE, 32)

5 – Tyrone Mings (ENG, 33)

13 – Matteo Ruggeri (ITA, 24)

14 – Pau Torres (ESP, 29)

22 – Ian Maatsen (NED, 24)

26 – Lamare Bogarde (NED, 22)

29 – Aaron Wan-Bissaka (ENG, 28)

Midfielders

6 – Ross Barkley (ENG, 32)

7 – John McGinn (SCO, 31)

8 – Boubacar Kamara (FRA, 26)

27 – Leon Goretzka (GER, 31)

35 – João Gomes (BRA, 25)

44 – Johan Manzambi (SUI, 20)

Forwards

10 – Emiliano Buendía (ARG, 29)

11 – Nicolas Jackson (SEN, 25)

17 – Alejandro Garnacho (ARG, 22)

18 – Tammy Abraham (ENG, 28)

19 – Ibrahim Mbaye (FRA, 18)

47 – Alysson (BRA, 20)

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