Arsenal Europa League Squad Has Three Surprise Absentees But Mesut Ozil Makes The Cut

Arsenal have been drawn in the Europa League Group F against Sporting Lisbon, Qarabag and Vorskla Poltava, with the first game versus Vorskla at the Emirates taking place on Thursday, September 20.

The Gunners revealed their 25-man squad today which included playmaker of Turkish origin Mesut Ozil.

Ozil will be competing in his second Europa League campaign in successive seasons for the North London based outfit.

There were three notable absentees from the squad as Ainsley Maitland-Niles, Eddie Nketiah and Emile Smith-Rowe did not make the cut.

Smith-Rowe was not allowed to leave on loan this season which makes his exclusion a surprise.

Interestingly enough, all three players could still feature in the European competition due to a UEFA rule change.

As long as the players in mention have their names submitted the day before the game they will be eligible as they can be named on the club’s B list according to Football.London.

UEFA rules state that: “A player may be registered on List B if he is born on, or after, 1 January 1997 and has been eligible to play for the club concerned for any uninterrupted period of two years since his 15th birthday (players aged 16 may be submitted if they have been registered with the club for the previous two years). Clubs are entitled to register an unlimited number of players on List B during the season, but the list must be submitted by no later than 24:00CET the day before a match.”

Arsenal squad 

Goalkeepers

Petr Cech

Bernd Leno

Emiliano Martinez

Deyan Iliev

Defenders

Hector Bellerin

Sokratis

Laurent Koscielny

Shkodran Mustafi

Stephan Lichtsteiner

Rob Holding

Nacho Monreal

Carl Jenkinson

Konstantinos Mavropanos

Sead Kolasianc

Midfielders

Mohamed Elneny

Henrikh Mkhitaryan

Aaron Ramsey

Mesut Ozil

Lucas Torreira

Alex Iwobi

Matteo Guendouzi

Granit Xhaka

Forwards

Alexandre Lacazette

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang

Danny Welbeck