Arsenal have announced the squad for the Europa League Round of 16 clash against Rennes.
The Gunners are without the suspended Alexandre Lacazette, Stephan Lichtsteiner remains an absentee, while there’s no sign of Mohamed Elneny who isn’t on the injury list so we assume he’s just been left out.
The full squad is:
- Petr Cech
- Bernd Leno
- Sokratis
- Laurent Koscielny
- Shkodran Mustafi
- Nacho Monreal
- Sead Kolasinac
- Ainsley Maitland-Niles
- Grant Xhaka
- Lucas Torreira
- Matteo Guendouzi
- Alex Iwobi
- Aaron Ramsey
- Henrikh Mkhitaryan
- Mesut Ozil
- Denis Suarez
- Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang
- Eddie Nketiah
The game kicks off tomorrow evening 17.55. Unai Emery will face the press later this evening in France, and we’ll have further updates here with any news.
Strong squad, I’d prefer to take a few youngsters
Rennes is not to take lightly, it is something other than Bate Borisov. They have very good players (inc the unpredictable Ben Arfa), a good hungry young coach, they are very well organised. On paper we’re stronger but beware the beasts from Brittany!
This is the all important first leg and Rennes isn’t to be taken lightly, especially considering how this team can be complacent sometimes. If we can win the first leg convincingly then we can take it easy on the first teamers in the return leg
I agree, however the climate is better for us an we are a stronger team. A few younger options on the bench would have been useful to us in the long term
How so? Let’s take care of business 1st then we can talk about younger options on the bench, we are a stronger team base off what? Same strong team that lost 1st leg to Bate a weaker team right?
Yes we need a full-strength side please – Rennes are no joke. In the last round they knocked out a decent Real Betis team that beat Barcelona in the league earlier this season.
They beat Real Betis who are a really strong side, it could actually be a really tricky couple of games. I think Emery is aware of this. COYGGGGG
So why is it that Rennes weekend game got cancelled domestically so they could be better prepared to play us? is that fair?
It’s up to the FA of each particular country when it comes to whether or not clubs get more time to prepare for European games. It happens all the time in the bundesliga, and Ajax had the weekend off prior to the Mauling of Madrid last night. English clubs have for a long time asked the Premier league and FA to do similar, but more than anything I suspect that the Premier league and their lucrative TV deals stand in the way of such an arrangement.
Can’t remember this ever happening in the Bundesliga. You’re right about Ajax though…
The Bundesliga teams often play on friday before important european matches.
The team that Rennes were due to play made an official complaint about it. Apparently it is quite common in France.
Hmm I wonder if PSG had the weekend off lol
I bet it took Ozil a while to find his passport!! ?
Took him a fortnite to find it.
W
I bet it took you a long time thinking of this witticism
I feel a bit sorry for Elneny
If there’s one player mistreated this season, it’s Elneny. A shame as he’s a hard worker and his past performances and recent were not so bad as to regularly drop him out.
He hasn’t been mistreated. He knows the deal, he’s a squad player, Wenger signed him as such. He’s fourth choice in a position which has space for 2 each game. He’s a very neat and tidy player though but doesn’t offer as much offensively as Xhaka, Torreira, Guendouzi. Maybe he has a small injury or illness that we don’t know about. Or maybe Stan requested that he no longer fly to away games because the weight of his dreadlocks was costing too much in fuel consumption price.
Maybe mistreated is a strong word, but I also was insinuating that no other player was ‘mistreated” 🙂 . However, I think Elneny is better than being dropped almost every time. But probably we don’t know everything about his situation.
I.d actually forgotten Elneny was still an Arsenal player! What did he do to piss off Unai so much? Kinda like the guy
He’s very average sadly. Although nothing against him. Hope he gets a move where he can play regularly and also where we get some profit to spend on our rebuild job this summer 😉
I guess the mustafi at rb experiment continues?
I know this is just nitpicking right now but why not elneny over one of the LB? Just in terms of the flex elneny gives you over having another LB on the bench.
AMN as right back, I assume. 3-2-3-2-1 or whatever the formation can be called. Three at the back, Kola and AMN on the wing back slots, the rest full steam ahead.
You can’t play with 12 players on the pitch. We are neither Spurs or United
????
If Elneny isn’t going to play it kinda makes the decision not to include Mavropanos in the Europa League squad look a bit odd.
Definitely would be an ideal game for mavro.
I’d say it will be 4-2-3-1
Cech
ANM
Sokratis
Musti
Nacho
Xhaka
Torreira
Iwobi
Ozil
Sead
Auba
What?!
No Carl Jenkinson or Elneny?
Unai out.
Take no chances against Rennes. Get the business done first half.
Then save players for the big one on the weekend.
Jenkinson isn’t in the squad. Emery must be saving him for Man United on Sunday! I see Bailly went off in the first half, that’s another injury for them ahead of Sunday, Sanchez also injured, every little advantage counts.
Seems like an ideal match for Jenks, but he may want to let AMN get back up to speed before Man U. I can’t see why he isn’t on the bench, though.
Arsenal could sometimes, in fact most times be complacent. Every game should be taken seriously. Imagine losing the chance of going into the top 4 last Saturday.
I think Bailly went off with a broken heart – poor guy just couldn’t play in that position and was getting targeted.
Rennes could be tricky.
It seems they’re very good at set pieces and its not like we’re not generous giving those out.
So – no silly fouls near goal please…
Who’s Grant Xhaka!?
He crushed F.C. Lee.