Tottenham's Randal Kolo Muani transfer issue as Thomas Frank faces Champions League decision

Tottenham have a new transfer deadline day signing in Randal Kolo Muani and a couple of expected departures and it all leaves Thomas Frank with decisions to make.

The loan move for the Frenchman from PSG, which does not come with an option or obligation to sign him permanently, made him the fifth new face brought in by the club this summer and the sixth signing of the window. Mohammed Kudus was snapped up in a £55million move from West Ham and was followed by the loan signing of Joao Palhinha from Bayern Munich. After a month's gap came the £52million capture of Xavi Simons from RB Leipzig.

Earlier in the window Tottenham had made the loan move of Mathys Tel permanent for £30million and signed Japan international centre-back Kota Takai for £5million.

Going out of the Hotspur Way exit door was captain Son Heung-min after 10 years at the club to join LAFC in an MLS record of more than £20million while a string of loan players have departed around the UK, Germany and Argentina, including Luka Vuskovic, who only arrived this summer finally from Hajduk Split and is now in Hamburg on loan.

In the final hours of deadline day, Spurs loaned Manor Solomon to Villarreal for the season and sold Bryan Gil to Girona in a €10million (£8.6million) deal.

So how does all of that affect Tottenham's long-standing squad issues that have resulted in players being left out each season from their European squad?

Here's what it means for both the club's Premier League and Champions League squads now Muani has sealed his move to north London and Frank's decisions.

Premier League

Muani, Xavi and Palhinha must be added in now, while Son, Fraser Forster, Timo Werner, Alfie Whiteman, Sergio Reguilon, Josh Keeley and Alejo Veliz have all come out of the squad from last season. Two players must come out of the Under-21s list and into the main lists in Antonin Kinsky and Matthew Craig, although we can assume the latter will not be part of the first team squad this season so we're not going to include him here.

In all Spurs have 16 non-homegrown players with Muani's arrival and Gil and Solomon's exits, when they can register 17. That number is helped domestically by the fact that a club's Under-21 players do not need to be included on their 25-man squad list yet are eligible to play in the Premier League.

To be considered an Under-21 player for this current Premier League season, players must have been born on or after January 1, 2004. That means Tel and Takai do not have to be registered in the main squad and Yang-min Hyeok, Luka Vuskovic, Ashley Phillips, Alfie Devine, Jamie Donley, George Abbott, Alfie Dorrington and Mikey Moore, who would have qualified, have all headed out on loan.

Kevin Danso qualifies as a homegrown player in Premier League terms because he was in the youth academies at Reading and MK Dons for years before leaving England at the age of 16 and later returning for a season at Southampton.

The Premier League rules state that "a 'Home Grown Player' means a player who, irrespective of nationality or age, has been registered with any club affiliated to The Football Association or the Football Association of Wales for a period, continuous or not, of three entire seasons, or 36 months, before his 21st birthday (or the end of the season during which he turns 21)."

With that in mind, here's how the club's Premier League squad looks now:

Premier League non-homegrown players (16 currently, 17 maximum allowed): Guglielmo Vicario, Antonin Kinsky, Pedro Porro, Radu Dragusin, Destiny Udogie, Cristian Romero, Micky van de Ven, Rodrigo Bentancur, Yves Bissouma, Joao Palhinha, Dejan Kulusevski, Richarlison, Pape Matar Sarr, Mohammed Kudus, Xavi Simons, Randal Kolo Muani.

Premier League homegrown players (Seven currently and eight minimum required): Dominic Solanke, Kevin Danso, Brandon Austin, Ben Davies, James Maddison, Brennan Johnson, Djed Spence.

Notable Under-21s players: Kota Takai, Archie Gray, Lucas Bergvall, Wilson Odobert, Mathys Tel, Dane Scarlett.

Champions League

You know this is the part where it gets messy. The European squad has been a constant nightmare for Spurs and will continue to be for a while longer until the recent batch of 18-year-old signings eventually become B list players after two years and then become club-trained players three years down the line from when they joined.

Frank admitted to football.london on Friday: "As I understand it, we still have a minor challenge there, so of course that decision will be made in due time."

It's definitely a challenge. That's because the major issue in the Champions League, as it was in the Europa League last season, lies in the difference between UEFA's rules and the Premier League ones.

UEFA's rules state that no club can have more than 25 players on their A-List during the season, of whom at least two must be goalkeepers. The rules then say that "as a minimum, eight of those 25 places are reserved exclusively for 'locally trained players' and no club may have more than four 'association-trained players' listed among those eight places. If a club have fewer than eight locally trained players in their squad, then the maximum number of players on List A is reduced accordingly".

So what is a locally-trained player? There are two different categories. One is 'club-trained players', those players on a club's books for three entire seasons or 36 months between the ages of 15 and 21. The other is 'association-trained players', who were on another club's books in the same association for three entire seasons or 36 months between the ages of 15 and 21. Danso will not fit into that latter category because he left England at the age of 16.

Then there is a B-List for players born on, or after, January 1, 2004 and who have been eligible to play for the club for any uninterrupted period of two years since their 15th birthday – or for a total of three consecutive years with a maximum of one loan period to a club from the same association for a period not longer than one year. Players aged 16 may be submitted if they have been registered with the club for the previous two years without interruption.

Dane Scarlett, who has thus far been able to find a transfer, fits into that B-List so would not have to be registered anywhere in the main squad.

Yet with all that in mind, Spurs' Champions League squad in its current state is rather bloated and spilling over in both non-locally trained spots and association trained ones.

They only have one club-trained player in goalkeeper Brandon Austin now when they need to register four, so that means Tottenham have to leave three spots open. So what should be a 25-man squad, instead shrinks to a 22-man one.

With the addition of Muani, Xavi, Palhinha, Kudus and Takai, while taking out Gil and Solomon, Spurs have 21 players to fit into 17 non-locally trained spots and six association-trained players for those four spots. Any association-trained players over the four allocated spots need to be crowbarred into the main group.

Maddison is likely to be kept out for the league phase at least with his ACL injury. Decisions will also have to be made over Radu Dragusin and Dejan Kulusevski and their potential return dates from their ACL and patella injuries respectively. The former is expected back in training towards the end of the international break but Frank told football.london that he will need a couple of months to get to the required fitness and for everyone to be confident that he can return.

Yves Bissouma could yet depart with the Turkish window closing on September 12.

The simplest way to look at it is that right now Spurs have 27 senior players to fit into 21 spots, keeping Austin aside.

Here's how it all looks:

European non-locally trained players (21 currently, 17 maximum): Guglielmo Vicario, Antonin Kinsky, Pedro Porro, Kevin Danso, Radu Dragusin, Destiny Udogie, Cristian Romero, Micky van de Ven, Rodrigo Bentancur, Yves Bissouma, Joao Palhinha, Wilson Odobert, Dejan Kulusevski, Richarlison, Pape Matar Sarr, Lucas Bergvall, Mathys Tel, Kota Takai, Mohammed Kudus, Xavi Simons, Randal Kolo Muani.

Association trained players (six currently, four can be used in exclusive slots): Dominic Solanke, Ben Davies, James Maddison, Brennan Johnson, Djed Spence, Archie Gray.

Club trained players (1 currently, four required): Brandon Austin.

Click here to read article