Calum Chambers has been ruled out of Arsenal’s Europa League clash with FC Köln on Thursday evening, but will play in the u23’s match on Friday.

According to Football.London, Chambers is short of full fitness at the moment as he recovers from his thigh injury and therefore won’t be in consideration for the first-team. However, he’ll get his chance to progress his recovery and build his match sharpness when the u23s take on Leicester.

Calum Chambers was initially set to leave the Gunners this summer, according to BBC Sport journalist David Ornstein, however, Arsène Wenger changed his mind and decided to reject bids from Leicester the day before the window closed.

From my best recollection, there’s been no reason given for why this was, although it’s been speculated that Wenger didn’t want to lose both Chambers and Gabriel in one summer. So once Gabriel got his move to Valencia, the Arsenal manager then wanted Chambers to stay.

After the Gunners failed to bring in any centre-backs over the summer, it was probably a good thing for the club to hang onto a young defender with Premier League experience who had been playing regular matches last year, I feel.

Unfortunately, Chambers fell injured right when he might have had a chance to break into the team as Arsenal struggled at centre-back with so many unavailable. Hopefully the u23 match against Leicester will help him get back up to speed.