Arsenal winger Reiss Nelson is not injured and did not make the matchday squad for the 4-1 defeat to Manchester City in the Carabao Cup on Tuesday night due to “managerial reasons”, according to Goal correspondent Charles Watts.

The week prior, the 21-year-old had been suffering from a minor injury but that had cleared up before the clash against the Citizens and Watts says he was perplexed as to why the midfielder wasn’t even on the bench for the cup tie:

“Reiss Nelson wasn’t injured [against City]. He’s been training and yet he’s not playing, I don’t understand that. He was playing so well in Europa League, he was scoring goals, he was creating goals and then suddenly he’s gone.”

“We were told he had a little bit of head injury in training but I mean that’s cleared now, he’s training, we’re seeing him and [against City] were told that he just wasn’t in the squad for managerial reasons and he was just not picked. What’s going on with that? Surely you play Reiss Nelson at the moment? Again, it’s another example of decision making I’m finding a little bit confusing.”

Considering that central midfielder Joe Willock started the City game out of position on the wing, it makes the decision to snub Nelson for the game even more worrying. Mikel Arteta‘s treatment of William Saliba had already been called into question, and some of his selection decisions on top of that raise concerns about the manager’s judgement. It will be interesting to see whether the winger makes the squad this evening.