Alexandre Lacazette will miss Arsenal’s entire Europa League last-16 tie after the striker was handed a three-game suspension following his sending off against BATE.
France forward Lacazette was shown a straight red for elbowing Aleksandar Filipovic in the late stages of last week’s 1-0 loss away to BATE and will no play no part in either of next month’s matches against Rennes.
The 27-year-old has already served one match of his ban, sitting out the 3-0 home triumph over the Belarusian side in the return encounter at Emirates Stadium, meaning he is free to return for the quarter-finals if Unai Emery’s men advance past their Ligue 1 opponents, whom they were drawn against on Friday.
Arsenal had few troubles in overturning the deficit incurred against BATE as Shkodran Mustafi and Sokratis Papastathopoulos both struck after Zakhar Volkov’s early own goal to confirm an ultimately comfortable 3-1 win on aggregate.
Valencia, meanwhile, have lost Geoffrey Kondogbia for both meetings with Krasnodar after UEFA punished the midfielder for deliberately picking up a booking in their first-leg victory against Celtic.
Kondogbia was cautioned for time wasting in Glasgow in an apparent attempt to serve a yellow-card ban before the last 16, which he will now sit out.
UEFA’s decision is a timely one with the governing body investigating Real Madrid captain Sergio Ramos after he allegedly committed a similar act away to Ajax in the Champions League knockout rounds.
Elsewhere, Serie A outfit Lazio have had a charge of racist behaviour levelled against them – stemming from the 3-0 aggregate loss to Sevilla – which will be heard by the UEFA Control, Ethics and Disciplinary Body on March 28.
The circumstances behind the allegation are unclear.
This post was last modified on February 23, 2019 9:01 am