Mikel Arteta has opened up on his "difficult" chat with Mesut Ozil after axing him from Arsenal's Europa League squad. The Gunners were only able to name 25 players to represent them in Europe this campaign, with Arteta leaving out Ozil and Soktratis Papstathopoulos.
The latter decision was perhaps to be expected, but the decision to leave out Arsenal's best-paid player was a controversial one.
Opening up on his chat with Ozil and Soktratis, Arteta revealed: "I spoke to them face to face before I released the squad and I explained the reason why the numbers that we had. "It was really difficult to tell them that, but these are the restrictions and the rules.
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