Konstantinos Mavropanos and Cohen Bramall have been left out of Arsenal’s Europa League squad, leaving supporters concerned and confused about why.
Arsenal have submitted their Europa League squad for the second half of the campaign, but they ended up leaving out two eligible players in Cohen Bramall and Konstantinos Mavropanos.
To explain why: Every squad of 25 must include eight homegrown players. In Arsenal’s case, their eighth player (Emi Martinez) left for Reading on loan, meaning the club have a squad of 24 and seven homegrown players instead (via Jeorge Bird).
The seven homegrown players in the squad are as follows:
- Deyan Iliev
- Hector Bellerin
- Carl Jenkinson
- Rob Holding
- Aaron Ramsey
- Alex Iwobi
- Danny Welbeck
After that, Arsenal can name another 17 non-homegrown senior players. Here are the 17 they’ve chosen:
- Petr Cech
- Bernd Leno
- Sokratis Papastathopoulos
- Laurent Koscielny
- Stephan Lichtsteiner
- Nacho Monreal
- Shkodran Mustafi
- Sead Kolasinac
- Mohamed Elneny
- Henrikh Mkhitaryan
- Mesut Özil
- Lucas Torreira
- Denis Suarez
- Matteo Guendouzi
- Granit Xhaka
- Alexandre Lacazette
- Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang
You can also name a B-list of under-21 players, but Mavropanos doesn’t qualify for that, as you have to have been at the club for two full years. Bramall doesn’t qualify because he wasn’t 21 or under at the start of the campaign. The only way to include either of the defenders would have been to leave out one of the above 17.
Understandably, Arsenal fans on Twitter are all either trying to get their head around the rules, or they’re growing concerned at the prospect of having to go through the Europa League knockout stages without such a promising young defender.
Leaving Mavropanos out borders on madness
— Christopher Jones (@quatermass_pitt) February 5, 2019
WHAAATT??
— Danny Aks (@DannyAks1) February 5, 2019
Mustafi Sokratis and Kos against some of Europe’s best 🤢🤢🤢
— Matt Sloan (@Sloan_12) February 5, 2019
Why not leave out someone like Elneny?! Very stupid decision.
— Danny Aks (@DannyAks1) February 5, 2019
What a joke…my only hope was that the two Greeks could form a good partnership at centre back
— Danny Aks (@DannyAks1) February 5, 2019
The homegrown rule is in place to encourage English clubs to develop their own talent, but it becomes a bit of a joke when you’re stuck with three homegrown players with long-term injuries in the squad. There should be a common-sense rule in place for emergency scenarios like this.
Finally, here’s the club’s B-list, although this isn’t set in stone, as you can alter the B-list up to 24 hours before each match:
- Arthur Okonkwo
- Daniel Ballard
- Tolaji Bola
- Zech Medley
- Joseph Olowu
- Tobi Omole
- Jordi Osei-Tutu
- Julio Pleguezuelo
- Dominic Thompson
- Robbie Burton
- Charlie Gilmour
- Ben Sheaf
- Nathan Tormey
- Gedion Zelalem
- Harry Clarke
- Trae Coyle
- Joe Willock
- Eddie Nketiah
- Emile Smith Rowe
- Xavier Amaechi
- Tyreece John-Jules
- Bukayo Saka