Paris Saint-Germain star Ousmane Dembele has been dropped ahead of his side’s Champions League clash with Arsenal this week.
The winger has been in flying form for the Ligue 1 outfit so far this season, scoring four and assisting three in six league appearances.
However, Dembele will not feature on Tuesday night when Les Parisiens travel to the Emirates Stadium to face Arsenal.
According to ESPN, the ex-Barcelona forward has been axed by manager Luis Enrique after the pair argued on Friday evening following PSG’s 3-1 win over Rennes.
The former Spain manager was unhappy with how the argument unfolded and has decided to drop Dembele as a result, with the No. 10 set to be replaced by Vitinha in his matchday squad.
The disciplinary action on the eve of such an important European clash will be music to the ears of Mikel Arteta, who will be hoping that his Arsenal team can secure their first three points in the competition on Tuesday night.
PSG are already without several stars for their trip to north London, with Gianluigi Donnarumma, Marco Asensio and Desire Doue all major doubts for the club. Lucas Hernandez, Presnel Kimpembe and Goncalo Ramos remain long-term absentees.
Arteta has revealed that Ben White and Riccardo Calafiori are ‘in contention’ to face PSG, though the Gunners plan on conducting fitness tests on the defensive partnership on Monday before making a definite decision.
Arsenal will be without Martin Odegaard, Mikel Merino, Oleksandr Zinchenko, Takehiro Tomiyasu and Kieran Tierney, however.
Speaking ahead of the match, Declan Rice revealed that he felt the size of the opposition made the match seem bigger than simply a group game.
He explained: “It’s obviously a different format now but we’re coming up against tougher teams than you would in a normal group stage format, we’ve got tougher teams now.
“Obviously we’ve got an exciting night here which is our second game. You normally find these games in the quarter-finals, semi-finals, so our second group game is massive.
“It’s a big game because we need to get points on the board in this new format, so we’ll be ready and we’re excited because we’ve not played PSG before. They are a top team, so we’re going to be ready for that one.”
