Only THREE of Chelsea's six new players from their £181 million signings can play in Champions League

Due to CHELSEA's January purchasing spree, manager Graham Potter is now faced with TWO significant selection issues.

And just one of them will be resolved, not even by a significant squad purge in the last days of the winter window.

The PSV winger Noni Madueke is the SIXTH player the Blues have signed during the mid-season transfer window.

With the arrival of the English former Spurs trainee for £29 million, the Chelsea leadership will have authorized a stunning £181 million in transfers since the year's beginning.

When Chelsea plays Borussia Dortmund in the round of 16, however, only THREE of the new additions may be registered to compete in the tournament according to Champions League regulations.

While Premier League regulations are different and permit complete squad changes during the mid-season window, Chelsea must adhere to the mandated eight "home-grown" players and may only sign up to 17 foreign superstars. 

That means Potter must officially announce a list of departures or risk having a number of players miss the rest of the season due to injury.

Additionally, the Prem's and Fifa's various sets of rules will make things more difficult.

When the dust settles on the actual composition of the Blues team on February 1, there will undoubtedly be difficult decisions that need to be made.

Joao Felix, who was acquired on loan from Atletico Madrid, will undoubtedly start the trio's European campaign.

However, that would only leave Potter with two players to choose from among the defensive midfielder Benoit Badiashile, the £62 million+ Mykhailo Mudryk, the Ivory Coast striker David Datro Fofana, Madueke, and the £18 million Brazilian recruit Andrey Santos, who is more likely to be on loan for the rest of the season.

Even that, though, is not as "easy" as it would seem.

Given that Armando Broja, an Albanian striker, is sidelined for the remainder of the season due to injury, Joao Felix would typically be a direct replacement.

The "B" list of players who were under 21 at the start of the season and, more importantly, "locally-trained" includes Slough-born Broja, a Chelsea player since entering the club's setup as a schoolboy.

Therefore, it may imply that he has to replace another player, which raises the possibility that the core team may eventually be sold or loaned out.

Madueke will qualify as a homegrown player for the Premier League but not for Uefa, which requires at least eight players who spent three years between the ages of 15 and 21 at a club in the same nation. Madueke is an English player. At age 16, he left Spurs for Holland.

It is anticipated that Badiashile would replace Mudryk and the injured Wesley Fofana, at least on the Uefa list.

But even though they were both signed for the long term, strikers Fofana and Madueke would be left without a spot.

In the Premier League, Chelsea's current homegrown list includes third-choice goalkeeper Marcus Bettinelli, Reece James, Ben Chilwell, Trevoh Chalabah, Mason Mount, Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Conor Gallagher, and Raheem Sterling. Under-21 players are not counted in this list.

In actuality, none of them are permitted to leave the club until they are replaced by a player with English qualifications.

Only Joao Felix, Badiashile, and Fofana have made their Chelsea debuts thus far among the newcomers.

However, with the recent additions and ongoing rumors of a seventh acquisition, probably Brighton's Ecuadorean midfielder Moises Caciedo, Potter's team now includes 28, three more senior players than is legally allowed.

Prem rules offer such rules a break in January so that everyone may register and participate.

However, that restriction expires when the transfer window shuts, giving Potter and the Chelsea board little over a week to finalize their departures and prevent players who were left out from exercising their Fifa-required right to a free transfer.