Arsenal announce Gedion in the Champions League squad

Arsenal have announced the squad for the Champions League group stage, and as Jeorge Bird reports, some youngsters have failed to make the cut in favor of more experienced players. Of the players you've probably heard of, Serge Gnabry, Thomas Eisfeld, Damian Martinez, and Kristoffer Olson appear to have been left out. Because of time spent at the club, none are eligible for the under-21 list, meaning they would have to be placed on the senior list to be able to participate.

EDIT: There's some weirdness here. UEFA's website seems to have two different squads - one with Gnabry, and one without. The fact that UEFA is incomprehensible should surprise nobody, but I have no idea what's going on here.

In the squad instead will be players like Nicklas Bendtner and...well, mostly it's Nicklas Bendtner that I noticed. Ryo made the team as well, but at this point I have no idea whether he or Gnabry is the superior player. I guess we'll find out. We will also be carrying three goalkeepers, as Wojciech Szczesny, Lukasz Fabianski, and new man Emiliano Viviano all make the squad.

Evidently Gedion Zelalem is more highly rated at the present time than the rest of the youth players, because extra steps were taken to get him into the squad. This shouldn't surprise anyone - he's been training with the first team for months, and he's been on the bench for every game so far this year. But Zelalem has been added to the first team officially, both for the Champions League - he's on List A - as well as generally.


This is pretty momentous for such a young player. Looking at this list, if Zelalem was to appear in Arsenal's next first team game, he'd be the youngest player ever to play for the club. He'll be 16 years, 231 days when Arsenal play Sunderland; Jack Wilshere was 16 years, 256 days when he faced Blackburn in 2008. The very top of the list is a pretty impressive group, and that says quite a bit about Zelalem's standing with Arsene Wenger.

Oh, by the way, Mesut Özil is on the list too. Here's everyone:

1. Wojciech Szczęsny
3. Bacary Sagna
4. Per Mertesacker
5. Thomas Vermaelen
6. Laurent Koscielny
7. Tomáš Rosický
8. Mikel Arteta
9. Lukas Podolski
10. Jack Wilshere
11. Mesut Özil
12. Olivier Giroud
13. Emiliano Viviano
14. Theo Walcott
15. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
16. Aaron Ramsey
17. Nacho Monreal
19. Santi Cazorla
20. Mathieu Flamini
21. Łukasz Fabiański
22. Yaya Sanogo
25. Carl Jenkinson
26. Emmanuel Frimpong
28. Kieran Gibbs
31. Ryo
36. Benik Afobe
37. Chuba Akpom
39. Zak Ansah
40. Hector Bellerin
41. Daniel Boateng
43. Zach Fagan
45. Isaac Hayden
47. Jack Jebb
48. Anthony Jeffrey
49. Austin Lipman
52. Nicklas Bendtner
54. Brandon Ormonde-Ottewill
56. Jon Toral
57. Nico Yennaris
58. Gedion Zelalem