Manchester City will only be able to register three new players for the knockout rounds of the Champions League.

City squeaked into the play-off for the last-16 after a comeback win over Club Brugge last week, and will face champions Real Madrid over two legs this month. The Blues will start as heavy underdogs against the Spanish giants, although Pep Guardiola was buoyed by the idea of having more players available.

As well as players returning from injury, City will be able to register three new signings for their squad for the second stage of the competition. These changes must be submitted by February 6 ahead of the start of the knockout rounds.

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After a busy January window that saw £175m spent to reinforce the squad, there are five extra players for Guardiola to consider putting into the squad. Nico Gonzalez, Abdukodir Khusanov, Vitor Reis and Omar Marmoush were all signed in the last month, while Claudio Echeverri will link up with the squad once he is finished representing Argentina a the South American Under-20 Championships; their final match is on February 16.

City will only be able to register three out of these five, having not met the criteria to add any more; UEFA only allows four to be registered if more than five players in the squad for the group stage have left, and five additions if more than seven have left. It is not the case that the Blues would simply be able to exclude anyone from their existing squad to replace them with the new signings.

Echeverri is the likeliest to be left out given he is not available for the Madrid tie, while of the other recruits Vitor Reis is the youngest and plays in the same position as Khusanov.