Newcastle United have dropped a £57 million duo from their squad for the remainder of the Premier League season.
Every season, Premier League clubs have to submit a 25-man squad list at both the end of the summer and winter transfer windows.
Clubs recently submitted their squads for the second half of the season following after the January transfer window closed last week.
Newcastle submitted a 25-man squad back in September, but for they will fulfil their final 15 games of the campaign with just 23 players.
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Eddie Howe's side have failed to hit the squad size limit due to the omissions of Sandro Tonali and Javier Manquillo.
Tonali joined the club from AC Milan in a blockbuster £52m move last summer, but he is currently serving a ban from football following an investigation into illegal betting activity.
With the Italian midfielder unavailable until August, the Magpies have opted to leave Tonali off their squad list for the rest of the 2023/24 campaign.
Javier Manquillo spent six-and-a-half-years at St James' Park after arriving from Atletico Madrid in a £5 million move in 2017, but in recent years he has found minutes hard to come by.
The Spanish full-back didn't make a single appearance in the first half of the season, and last month left the club for Celta Vigo on a free transfer.
Each Premier League club's 25 player squad must contain at least eight 'homegrown' players.
Players born on or after January 1, 2002 do not need to be included in the 25-man list, meaning the likes of Tino Livramento, Lewis Miley, Lewis Hall, Elliot Anderson and Joe White couldn't be used to 'replace' Tonali or Manquillo.
Academy players like Alex Murphy, Ben Parkinson, Michael Ndiweni, Amadou Diallo and latest signing Alfie Harrison don't need to be included to be eligible to play in the Premier League, meaning Howe had nobody to add to his list of 23 players.
Newcastle have been plagued by injuries this season, so fans will be hoping their smaller squad size does not come back to bite them.
Newcastle's next Premier League assignment is away to Nottingham Forest on Saturday evening.
Topics: Newcastle United, Sandro Tonali, Premier League, Eddie Howe
Alex Brotherton