Aston Villa’s 23-player squad for this season’s Champions League has been confirmed, with summer signings Taylor Harwood-Bellis and Modou Keba Cisse, as well as striker Brian Madjo, left out.All three players will be unable to play in the Champions League until the knockout phase. Clubs that progress through the league phase and play-off round are permitted to make a maximum of three changes to the squad by the deadline of February 4.The rest of Villa’s new arrivals — Zion Suzuki, Matteo Ruggeri, Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Leon Goretzka, Joao Gomes, Johan Manzambi, Nicolas Jackson, Alejandro Garnacho and Ibahim Mbaye — are all included on the squad list.Villa can only name 23 players (rather than the maximum of 25) in ‘List A’ due to only having two players that are “club-trained”, meaning that a player that has been registered at their current team for three consecutive seasons between the ages of 15 and 21. Defender Lamare Bogarde and backup goalkeeper James Wright are the only players that meet these requirements. Villa’s selection has been confirmed by UEFA, with the club yet to publicly address it.Harwood-Bellis arrived at Villa on deadline day from Southampton, with Villa seeking reinforcement at centre-back after Ezri Konsa joined Arsenal earlier in the window. The deal was worth an initial £25million ($33.8m), with a further £5m in add-ons, with the defender signing a five-year contract. The 24-year-old could be in line to make his debut against Hull City on Saturday.Cisse, 21, has also been omitted from the squad, after joining this summer from Austrian Bundesliga club LASK. Villa agreed to sign the Senegalese centre-back last summer for €5m, with the player remaining in Austria for one more season.He was on the bench for Villa’s 2-1 Super Cup defeat against Paris Saint-Germain last month but was not included in the matchday squad for either of the side’s first two Premier League matches.Madjo scored on his debut in the Super Cup (Alex Grimm/Getty Images)Madjo, who scored Villa’s goal in the Super Cup, has been absent at the start of the season with an injury. The 17-year-old joined Villa from Metz in January in a deal worth £10m but was unable to play until the club’s appeal to register him was accepted by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in August.Neither he nor Cisse are eligible to feature on ‘List B’, which allows players born after January 1, 2005 to be registered separately from the main squad, but only if they have been eligible to play for the club for two consecutive years after turning 15, or three consecutive years, including a loan spell within the same association.“It is hard, the decision we took, and for the players,” Villa manager Unai Emery said at a press conference later on Friday. “The experience we have here, when we were without (Donyell) Malen, Andres (Garcia). To decide, it is through the analysis of how we are expecting to be until January. We are going to play eight matches. (Modou Keba) Cisse is not in because he is injured. (Brian) Madjo is still injured for the next two weeks minimum.“Taylor arrived as the last one, and we can get the balance with Lamare Bogarde, and we can even play Kamara. We tried to analyse it deeply. Taylor will be here for a long time, and hopefully, we will have the opportunity to play in Europe with us, in January maybe, and the next few years. Madjo is 17 years old and is so, so young. He will have, for sure, more opportunities to play with us this year and the next years in Europe.”