Newcastle United trio ruled out of AC Milan as three more 'doubtful' after training ground update

Newcastle United will be without four more first-team players for their final Champions League group stage match against AC Milan, as per UEFA rules.

Newcastle will host Milan at St James' Park on Wednesday night (8pm kick-off) with a squad decimated by injuries. Despite that, Eddie Howe has named an unchanged outfield for each of Newcastle's last five matches in all competitions.

Sunday's 4-1 defeat at Tottenham Hotspur saw Matt Ritchie and Emil Krafth come off the bench in the closing stages. That is an option that won't be available to Howe on Wednesday evening with the duo not eligible to feature in the Champions League.

Ritchie, Krafth, Mark Gillespie and Javier Manquillo are the four senior players not named in Newcastle's Champions League squad for the group stage matches. With doubts over Martin Dubravka, Sean Longstaff and Anthony Gordon after the trio missed training on Tuesday, The Magpies could be without 16 first-team players for the Milan match.

That will leave Howe unable to name a full bench. Newcastle can name up to 12 substitutes in the Champions League but they will have to turn to their Under-21s players to bolster it as much as possible on Wednesday evening.

Champions League squad rules

 In the Champions League, 17 players can be named in the squad without any restrictions. Then, in order to name more players in their squad, clubs must include up to eight further homegrown players.

Of the eight homegrown players, at least four must be club-trained in order to name a full squad of 25. If a club are unable to fill the homegrown or club-trained player quotas, their squad sizes will be reduced accordingly.

While players born on or after January 1, 2002 - such as Tino Livramento and Hall - do not need to be included in the 25-man squad in order to be eligible to play in the Premier League, they do need to be included in the Champions League squad lists.

Because of this a second list, ‘List B’ must be submitted to UEFA which includes players born on or after January 1, 2002 who have been eligible to play for the club in question for an uninterrupted period of at least two years or three years including a one-year loan spell. Players such as Lewis Miley fall into this category while more recent Under-21s signings such as Amadou Diallo and Alex Murphy - both of whom have recently featured in the Premier League - can't be included.

An unlimited number of players can be named on ‘List B’ and they can be submitted by midnight the day before a match for players to be eligible to play. Newcastle have only three club-trained first-team players in Elliot Anderson, Sean Longstaff and Paul Dummett, meaning they could only name a ‘List A’ squad of up to 24 players, or 23 players with Anderson named in ‘List B’.

After omitting the four players from Newcastle’s Champions League squad, Howe told The Gazette: “Very difficult [decisions]. It was a difficult situation for me and the club to be in really where we had to leave players out of the squad and we don’t want to leave anyone out.

“It was a reward for the whole squad last year and we had to make some very tough calls because of the rules and regulations that the Champions League put in place. They weren’t easy conversations but ones I had to make."