Zinchenko & former Gunner excluded from Nottingham Forest squad | OneFootball

Arsenal loanee Oleksandr Zinchenko and former academy winger Omari Hutchinson have both been left out of Nottingham Forest’s Europa League squad.

Photo by Justin Setterfield/Getty Images

Following the closure of the transfer window, Nottingham Forest officially submitted their senior squad for the League Phase of the Europa League on Tuesday night, with UEFA publishing the squad list on Wednesday.

Forest were over the limit for non-homegrown or non-club-trained players, meaning they were forced to leave quite a few players out.

Angus Gunn, Jair Cunha, Cuiabano, Jota Silva, and Taiwo Awoniyi were all excluded, but notably so were Arsenal’s Oleksandr Zinchenko and new summer signing Omari Hutchinson.

Photo by Justin Setterfield/Getty Images

As neither Zinchenko nor Hutchinson qualify for Forest’s u21 ‘List B’, this means they won’t be able to feature in this season’s Europa League until the knockout stages at the earliest.

Hutchinson is 21, but he falls just the wrong side of the age cut-off, and you also have to play for a club for two years before becoming eligible for UEFA’s List B.

If Forest qualify for the knockouts, they’ll submit an updated squad list at that stage. But there are no guarantees either player will be added, unless there are significant outgoings to make room in the squad.

Both Zinchenko and Hutchinson should at least be able to feature in domestic competition, with the Premier League squad lists yet to be formally confirmed.

Omari Hutchinson when joining Ipswich Town from Chelsea, signing a 4 year contract, Portman Road, Ipswich, UK – 30th June 2024

As for why Zinchenko and Hutchinson have been left out, Nick Miller suggests for The Athletic that perhaps Hutchinson’s problem is that manager Nuno Espirito Santo has multiple options in all of the positions Hutchinson can play.

Even so, it’s quite surprising to see the club’s record signing excluded, and perhaps it’s another sign of the rift between Nuno and Edu Gaspar.

Former Gunner Edu is in charge of transfers, and so he would’ve been behind the decision to sign Hutchinson. But perhaps Nuno isn’t as much of a fan, and he clearly doesn’t care about offending his club’s sporting director over the purchase.

Photo by Lia Toby/Getty Images

As for Zinchenko, the decision is harder to understand. Nuno had called for reinforcements at full-back, so to then leave the new full-back signing out of the squad is a strange call.

The pair will have to hope they can impress Nuno enough to break into his first-choice side over the coming months, and that Forest reach the knockouts without them.