Arsenal boss has confirmed Laurent Koscielny will feature against Qarabag in a Europa League dead rubber against Qarabag at the Emirates on Thursday night.
The Frenchman will make his first appearance since May after being sidelined after rupturing his Achilles tendon during Arsenal’s match against Atletico Madrid. The injury saw him miss the World Cup and is yet to play in Gunner’s first team since Unai Emery took over from Arsene Wenger. The 33-year-old is now back to full fitness and played some minutes with the Arsenal youth.
“Our first mind in this competition is to be first in the group – which we have done. But we respect this competition and Qarabag. [On Thursday] our objective is to win, we will give players the chance to take responsibility and confidence,” said Emery.
“We are going to use the match with some different players, with some coming from Under-23s. We also start to play with Laurent Koscielny,” he confirmed.
However, Emery isn’t sure whether Koscielny will be involved against Southampton in the Premier League match on Sunday as he will wait to see how he copes with the home match.
“We have some players with injuries and unavailable at center-back. We are going to decide after Thursday [if Koscielny plays at the weekend] because it will be the first time Koscielny can play. We can use other players in this position, like sometimes [Nacho] Monreal and [Stephan] Lichtsteiner, so we will decide, but first, we think about the Qarabag game.”
