Ghana midfielder Michael Essien has been dropped from Chelsea’s Premier League and Champions League squads until next year, MTNFootball.com can confirm.

Blues coach Andres Villas-Boas has told the powerful midfielder of the decision. The powerful enforcer was axed from the two squads until January when he could be reconsidered depending on the progress on his knee injury.

Essien has been ruled out until the new year with the serious knee ligament injury.

The Ghanaian has not be included in the club’s 25-man Premier League squad for the first half of the season as he has been replaced by the club’s youngsters. “We have a couple of under-21 players, and we have Essien’s injury. We’ll only register him in January, as he knows. We can play a little bit with that,” Andres Villas-Boas said.

Chelsea were forced to sacrifice the midfielder from their Champions League squad for the group stage of the competition also because of some new rules.

Essien, who is in rehabilitation after suffering knee ligament damage in pre-season, has not been named as he is unlikely to be available for the group stage of the competition. That situation can be revisited in January, when the Ghanaian should be nearing a return to fitness.

Essien was not included in a 22-man A-list squad – three short of the permitted 25-man party – submitted to and confirmed by Uefa.

Chelsea have effectively been frustrated by the fact that they were limited to 17 non-homegrown players and unable to fill their eight-man allocation of homegrown personnel in their party for the competition.