Arsenal goalkeeper Dejan Iliev is doing fitness work with the club as he works on the injury picked up on his loan to Shrewsbury Town.
26-year-old Arsenal goalkeeper Dejan Iliev was pictured at London Colney doing fitness work over the weekend, with youth goalkeeper James Hillson posting his teammate on his Instagram story.
Iliev is back with Arsenal after his loan spell with Shrewsbury Town, but he hasn’t made an appearance for the first team or the u23s since returning. That’s due to an injury he reportedly picked up during his loan spell in Shrewsbury.
Arsenal added Iliev back into their Premier League squad in January, but they couldn’t add him to the Europa League squad.
You can only make three changes to the Europa League’s main squad list in January, and Arsenal were already adding Mat Ryan, Martin Odegaard, and Gabriel Martinelli – who was absent for the group stage through injury.
Iliev made three appearances for Shrewsbury Town on loan, keeping one clean sheet, but a mixture of fitness problems and selection decisions meant he never got a run in the side.
The goalkeeper still has a year left on his Arsenal contract, but you’d expect the club to look to sell him on this summer. First things first, he needs to get fit again and ideally play a few games before the season ends.
If Arsenal fail to sell Iliev over the summer, it’s not a disaster in terms of squad spaces. He’s homegrown and club-trained, so he’ll easily slot into one of the spare squad spots if he has to.