The international transfer window shut on Monday and Arsenal were left with 19 non-homegrown players in their squad, which is two more than both the Premier League and Uefa allow.
As a result, on Thursday both Mesut Ozil and Sokratis Papastathopoulos were left out of Arsenal’s Europa League squad and they risk being omitted from the Premier League one too when that is submitted on October 20.
That leaves Ozil and Sokratis staring down the barrel of not playing for Arsenal again until January, when the transfer window opens, but Edu insists the club were open and clear with players that may not be registered.
“There is another point, which is quite relevant to mention, which is the number of foreign players we needed to manage in the squad,” Edu told Arsenal.com.
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“Because when we sign players here we have to manage because we are just allowed to have 17 [non-homegrown] players in our list.
“When I talk to Mikel [Arteta] and our board, players are probably going to be out of the list and how can we treat that challenging situation well.
“So the way we did it is to sit down with the players, be open to the players. I spoke to the agents, be open to the agents as well.
"The only way that we can do that is be open, clear and face to face to explain why Mikel has that decision.”
