Europa League Squad Announced

Arsenal have announced their Europa League team for the forthcoming 20/21 Europa League campaign. As with Arsenal’s Premier League squad, the squad list can be changed in January.

Europa League squads are listed in two lists, which serve different purposes:

  • List A: Main list of players.
  • List B: Back-up list of players, can be used in times of injury crisis or suspensions.

Teams can only register 25 players on List A during a season, with 8 places being reserved for what UEFA refers to as “locally trained players”.

Arsenal’s squad is as follows:

Goalkeepers
1.) Bernd Leno
13.) Rúnar Alex Rúnarsson
33.) Matthew Macey
45.) James Hillson
46.) Dejan Iliev

Defenders
2.) Héctor Bellerín
3.) Kieran Tierney
6.) Gabriel Magalhães
16.) Robert Holding
17.) Cédric Soares
20.) Shkodran Mustafi
21.) Calum Chambers
22.) Pablo Marí
23.) David Luiz
31.) Sead Kolašinac

Midfielders
8.) Dani Ceballos
15.) Ainsley Maitland-Niles
18.) Thomas Partey
25.) Mohamed Elneny
34.) Granit Xhaka

Forwards
9.) Alexandre Lacazette
12.) Willian
14.) Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang
19.) Nicolas Pépé

It is not yet known who is considered to be on List A and who is on List B, but it is likely that a number of Arsenal’s UEFA reserve squad are on the list.

Eddie Nketiah, Reiss Nelson, Emile Smith-Rowe, Joe Willock and Bukayo Saka are not required to be reigstered, as they are all under the age of 23.

The most glaring omissions for Arsenal come in the form of William Saliba, Sokratis Papastathopoulos, Mesut Özil and Gabriel Martinelli.

Sokratis Papastathopoulos and Mesut Özil have been omitted from the squad.

For Saliba and Martinelli, their omissions make sense as Arsenal are currently looking into a potential loan move for Saliba and Martinelli is currently a long-term injury concern and is not due to return to Arsenal’s squad or even training sessions until the end of December as a minimum.

Sokratis and Mesut Özil’s omissions are perhaps an indication of what is in store for the duo. Sokratis had been close to an exit in the summer transfer window, with Napoli thought to be close to signing the Greek international, however, no such move materialised.

As for Mesut Özil, the beginning of the end looks to be nigh. The German playmaker looks to be out of favour under Mikel Arteta, just as he was under Unai Emery, with no route back looking likely.

While for many, their omissions may be as a result of a drastically bloated squad that was a victim of Arsenal unable to trim the proverbial fat from their squad over the summer, it is telling that players such as Sead Kolašinac (who had also been close to an exit of his own over the summer) and Shkodran Mustafi are preferred to Özil.

Leave a Reply

%d bloggers like this: