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Arsene Wenger is ready to hand Jack Wilshere a Europa League lifeline at Arsenal .

Wenger will rest and rotate his line-up and make drastic changes for Thursday’s game with Cologne and through the early rounds.

Gunners boss Wenger has earmarked Wilshere to play which would be his first appearance for Arsenal in 13 months.

Wilshere, 25, is fit after breaking his leg while on a year-long loan at Bournemouth last season and decided to stay at the Emirates after being told he will get games in Europe and the domestic cups.

Olivier Giroud, Theo Walcott and Alexis Sanchez are also likely to get game time on Thursday with the Chile forward needing match fitness.

(Image: Rex Features)

Wenger is committed to the high risk strategy through the Group stage and then step up the number of big names for the knock-out phase.

But Wenger is aware of the demands of Sunday’s trip to Chelsea and will prioritise the Premier League.

Gunners keeper Petr Cech won the trophy while at Chelsea and insisted they wanted to make history by winning it.

Cech said: “You make your decision. When I was at Chelsea, we were really disappointed to be out from the group stage of the Champions League, but we decided that it was the first time and hopefully the last time we played the Europa League and we wanted to win it.

(Image: REUTERS)

“You decide how to approach it. You go in it to win it, give yourself a chance to do it or make different priorities and then see how it goes.

"But I have to say that we are happy with the win, from tomorrow we can think about the Europa League.

“It’s one of the trophies that this club has not won since it became the Europa League, it could be one of the targets because it’s always nice to win a European trophy, regardless of which one it is.”