Eagle-eyed Arsenal fans spotted that Mesut Özil was missing from the club’s pre-Huddersfield training photos, leading to speculation he may miss out on the match.

Arsenal completed their final training session of the week on Friday, but there was seemingly one notable absentee from the photos they posted afterwards. Mesut Özil, who has been in and out of the team due to Unai Emery’s tactical decisions recently, appears to have missed out, as some supporters spotted.

https://twitter.com/_GoonerPrincess/status/1094006016042250241

If Emery had Bergkamp, he would still bench him or exile him. No Ozil again!

— Kamau Mwangi (@Kamau_Mwangi1) February 9, 2019

@MesutOzil1088 where are you????????????????????????????

— Team Peace (@angelmikael5) February 8, 2019

Despite the various conspiracy theories in the replies, it’s unlikely Özil’s absence has anything to do with Emery’s recent tactical decisions to leave him out. Even if the head coach was planning to drop the German again this weekend, he’d still take part in training.

Plus, Emery doesn’t tend to reveal his team to the players until the final day of training anyway, so Özil wouldn’t know he’d been dropped until he was already there. It seems more probable that the 30-year-old playmaker has just picked up the same illness affecting Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Laurent Koscielny.

It’s also worth noting that Özil was in training videos from earlier in the week, so it’s possible he just missed out on the final day as a precaution and he’ll be back for the game. We’ll have to wait and see.