Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has confirmed that the club will be without six first-team players excluding Santi Cazorla for Thursday night’s Europa League clash versus Swedish outfit Ostersund.
The Frenchman had suggested that he would name a strong-looking side for the game, but he has left a couple of key players from the travelling squad as they continue to recover from their respective injuries.
Jack Wilshere, Petr Cech and Laurent Koscielny are among those who have been left out to recover from minor niggles, whilst Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang remains ineligible to feature in the competition due to Borussia Dortmund’s participation in it.
“Wilshere, Koscielny, Cech, Aubameyang (ineligible) left behind and everyone else has travelled. ,” he is quoted as saying on the club’s official website. “One or two had recent problems, like Koscielny with his Achilles. Wilshere was more precautionary.”
Aside from this, there is not much of a positive news on the injury front with Aaron Ramsey unlikely to recover from his minor groin injury until the League Cup final versus Manchester City at the least.
“It is a little bit sensitive case because we expected him to be a bit further in his development of the groin problem and he doesn’t move forward as quickly as we expected it,” he added.
“Today we would say that certainly he will not be available even for the next game against Ostersunds. Maybe for the cup final, we don’t know yet, it depends how he will progress from now.”
Alexandre Lacazette remains a long-term absentee for the Gunners after having undergone a knee surgery which will keep him out for a period of four to six weeks, thus ruling him out of both legs versus Ostersund as well as the Cup final.
With both Lacazette and Aubameyang unavailable, Danny Welbeck is expected to lead the line for the Gunners in Ostersund, where they are likely to face a frosty reception which temperatures dropping below zero degree Celsius in the evenings.
Mesut Ozil has already been named as a definite starter for the encounter, and he could be paired alongside Henrikh Mkhitaryan, who will want to make amends for his previous outing at Spurs, where his crossing was poor from the left side of the attack.
