Arsenal have announced the squad for the Champions League group stage, and as Jeorge Bird reports, some youngsters have failed to make the cut in favor of more experienced players. Of the players you've probably heard of, Serge Gnabry, Thomas Eisfeld, Damian Martinez, and Kristoffer Olson appear to have been left out. Because of time spent at the club, none are eligible for the under-21 list, meaning they would have to be placed on the senior list to be able to participate.

EDIT: There's some weirdness here. UEFA's website seems to have two different squads - one with Gnabry, and one without. The fact that UEFA is incomprehensible should surprise nobody, but I have no idea what's going on here.

In the squad instead will be players like Nicklas Bendtner and...well, mostly it's Nicklas Bendtner that I noticed. Ryo made the team as well, but at this point I have no idea whether he or Gnabry is the superior player. I guess we'll find out. We will also be carrying three goalkeepers, as Wojciech Szczesny, Lukasz Fabianski, and new man Emiliano Viviano all make the squad.

Evidently Gedion Zelalem is more highly rated at the present time than the rest of the youth players, because extra steps were taken to get him into the squad. This shouldn't surprise anyone - he's been training with the first team for months, and he's been on the bench for every game so far this year. But Zelalem has been added to the first team officially, both for the Champions League - he's on List A - as well as generally.

As @Gunnerblog and @RYO_cleverfish point out, Zelalem has also been promoted to the first-team squad at just 16 years of age. — Jeorge Bird (@jeorgebird) September 4, 2013

This is pretty momentous for such a young player. Looking at this list, if Zelalem was to appear in Arsenal's next first team game, he'd be the youngest player ever to play for the club. He'll be 16 years, 231 days when Arsenal play Sunderland; Jack Wilshere was 16 years, 256 days when he faced Blackburn in 2008. The very top of the list is a pretty impressive group, and that says quite a bit about Zelalem's standing with Arsene Wenger.

Oh, by the way, Mesut Özil is on the list too. Here's everyone:

1. Wojciech Szczęsny

3. Bacary Sagna

4. Per Mertesacker

5. Thomas Vermaelen

6. Laurent Koscielny

7. Tomáš Rosický

8. Mikel Arteta

9. Lukas Podolski

10. Jack Wilshere

11. Mesut Özil

12. Olivier Giroud

13. Emiliano Viviano

14. Theo Walcott

15. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain

16. Aaron Ramsey

17. Nacho Monreal

19. Santi Cazorla

20. Mathieu Flamini

21. Łukasz Fabiański

22. Yaya Sanogo

25. Carl Jenkinson

26. Emmanuel Frimpong

28. Kieran Gibbs

31. Ryo

36. Benik Afobe

37. Chuba Akpom

39. Zak Ansah

40. Hector Bellerin

41. Daniel Boateng

43. Zach Fagan

45. Isaac Hayden

47. Jack Jebb

48. Anthony Jeffrey

49. Austin Lipman

52. Nicklas Bendtner

54. Brandon Ormonde-Ottewill

56. Jon Toral

57. Nico Yennaris

58. Gedion Zelalem

Names in bold are List B (under-21) players.