Arsenal name its Europa League squad

Now that the transfer window’s done, and Arsenal’s squad is what it is, we can start turning our attention fully to the competitions at hand. Chief among those competitions is the Europa League, about which a lot of you probably don’t care but about which I care almost too much. I’m excited for it to start and I hope Arsenal pour everything they have into it, because winning it is, to oversimplify a bit, a good idea.

To that end, Arsenal have submitted their Europa League squad list to UEFA for the group stages, and it contains very few surprises. Wenger has implied that he will give young players a chance in this competition, so the inclusion of 14 players under 21 isn’t a huge surprise. As I’m not a detailed follower of the youth setup, seeing names like Tafari Moore, Ben Sheaf, and Marcus McGuane makes me do a bit of a “who are these guys” double-take; I doubt those guys will see much time, but if you’re one of those names that nobody knows, how excited are you right now to be part - even a small part - of a European competition at that age?

Arsenal’s first Europa League game is next Thursday the 14th, against 1. FC Köln at the Emirates.

EDIT 10.38AM PT: The link above, for some reason, omitted Alex Iwobi from the list. This is the official squad list on UEFA’s site, and he’s listed there.