Arsenal chief Edu: I told Ozil face-to-face of Europa League axe

Arsenal chief Edu has spoken of how he broke the news to Mesut Ozil and Sokratis that they wouldn’t be registered for the Europa League.

Edu and manager Mikel Arteta organised face-to-face meetings with the out of favour duo to explain why they were not in the club’s 25-man Uefa squad.

Edu said: “We needed to manage the number of foreign players in the squad because we are only allowed to have 17 on our list.

“I talked to Mikel about the players who were probably going to be left out and we discussed how to treat that challenging situation.

“The way we did it was to sit down with the players concerned and to be open with them and I also spoke to their agents.

“The only way to do that was face-to-face and to clearly explain why Mikel has made that decision. And I think we did it quite well.”