Unai Emery says Sokratis Papastathopoulos and Mesut Özil have been left behind from the trip to Frankfurt to rest and prepare for the match against Aston Villa on Sunday.

After missing the first few weeks of the season through a combination of illness and off-field issues, Özil made his comeback to competitive football with a start against Watford at the weekend.

The 30-year-old completed 71 minutes before being substituted, but he didn’t join up with the squad travelling to Germany this week. Nor did Sokratis, who has played the full 90 minutes of every single Premier League game so far.

In response to questions about why the pair had stayed at home, Emery gave the same answer in both cases – that they’ve been rested ahead of the Aston Villa match on Sunday.

“We are playing now a lot of matches and I wanted to use different players,” Emery said (via football.london). “We can have some rotation in the first XI and the 19 players. Sokratis and Mesut are rested for [the Frankfurt] match.

“We are going to play another match on Sunday. The first match he (Özil) played [against Watford] he played good with his capacity and skills.

“His first minutes for us was good. Now he is going to be helping us. Sunday we are going to play another match. We’re thinking to do some reaction.”

Of course, this is slightly more believable in Sokratis’ case. The Greek defender clearly needed a rest, particularly after also playing the full 180 minutes for his country over the international break.

With Özil, it’s hard to believe 71 minutes against Watford has worn him out so thoroughly that he can’t feature in the Frankfurt game. However, it’s possible his fitness levels had dropped over his time out, and he can’t handle three games in a week at the moment.

Whatever the truth of the matter may be, Arsenal will have to try and get a result against Frankfurt without the duo on Thursday night.