Kolasinac is back after knife attack
vGroup F, KO 5.55pm SEAD KOLASINAC has spoken for the first time about his terrifying knife ordeal and how “mentally hard” it was to come back.
The Bosnia star and his Arsenal team-mate Mesut Ozil were targeted by carjackers last month. They feared for their safety and were given permission to miss Arsenal’s opening game of the season at Newcastle and Ozil did not travel to Germany with boss Unai Emery diplomatically insisting his midfielder needs a rest. Full-back Kolasinac has regained his firstteam place, but Ozil (left) has played just 71 minutes all season as he started his first game at Watford on Sunday, which makes Emery’s excuse seem farfetched. Kolasinac, talking ahead of the group opener with Eintracht Frankfurt, said: “I’m happy to be back. Of course mentally this was hard, having missed training for a couple of days.
“I made up for it. I’m back and happy to be back with the team and able to perform with them on the pitch with the team.
“About what happened, I don’t want to talk about it in detail. It has happened and it’s something that belongs to the past.
“The same with Mesut. We are back and we focus on our job and team. We have a very important match ahead here in Frankfurt.”
Kolasinac became a cult hero with Arsenal fans for his bravery as a clip of him protecting his pal Ozil during the attack (above) was shown on social media.
But the German’s absence from a near full-strength squad in Frankfurt is baffling, although Emery denied it had anything to do with him becoming public enemy No.1 in his homeland after a row over his Turkish heritage. Instead, Emery tried to pass it off as Ozil, who has struggled to fit into his philosophy, needing a break while Greek defender Sokratis was also left at home after his blunder at Watford.
Emery said: “We are playing a lot of matches now and I want to use different players and also some rotation in the first 11.”
He added: “Sokratis and Mesut will rest for this match.”
The Spaniard would have preferred an easier game to start Arsenal’s European campaign after the Watford setback, which club legend Martin Keown branded “brainless and horrific”.
Emery, who has ditched a translator at press conferences this season, added: “We need to correct some mistakes we made at Watford. Tomorrow is another challenge for us to show we can improve.”