Arsenal Pre-Season Training: Key Arrivals and Challenges

Arsenal’s training pitches are filling up again. The summer lull is over; the countdown to another crack at major honours has begun.

Mikel Arteta had the bulk of his squad back at the Sobha Realty Training Centre on Monday for the official start of pre-season, after a first conditioning camp in Marbella. For now, it is a stripped-back group: players who skipped the World Cup, loanees returning to stake a claim, and a handful of youngsters thrown into the deep end.

Early arrivals and returning projects

Ethan Nwaneri, Reiss Nelson and Fabio Vieira are among those back from loan spells, all trying to convince Arteta they belong in his plans rather than on another temporary move. Cristhian Mosquera has reported in too, eyeing the chance of real minutes with William Saliba sidelined for the next few months.

New goalkeeper Illan Meslier has joined his team-mates for the first time, beginning the process of bedding into a defensive unit that has been largely settled for two seasons. Youngsters Marli Salmon and Max Dowman are also in the main group, experiencing the standards expected at London Colney.

Riccardo Calafiori is involved, as are Myles Lewis-Skelly and Gabriel Jesus. Ben White is back as well, a quietly significant boost. The right-back missed the run-in last season with a knee problem, but his rehab over the summer has gone to plan. He trained in Marbella and has stepped straight into full sessions back in north London.

Jurrien Timber is again a familiar face around the group. After minor groin surgery he has not yet completed a full return to contact work, but his presence is a reminder of the defensive depth Arsenal hope to lean on once he is fully fit.

World Cup contingent filters back

The first official pre-season fixture comes on August 1 against Girona. Before then, the World Cup drip-feed begins.

Players are entitled to at least three weeks off after international duty, and after last season’s relentless schedule Arsenal may extend that for some. Kai Havertz is due back in the coming days following Germany’s exit in the round of 32. The forward has been keeping sharp by training at former club Bayer Leverkusen this week, priming himself to rejoin Arteta’s sessions.

Piero Hincapie and Viktor Gyokeres have now completed their three-week breaks and are expected back next week. Gabriel and Gabriel Martinelli went a step further with Brazil at the tournament, but they too are scheduled to return at the start of next week and should be part of the group that heads to Spain for the Girona match.

That game will come too early for Martin Odegaard. The Arsenal captain took Norway to the quarter-finals, where they lost to England on July 11. His three-week rest period means he is only due back in training in the week commencing August 3.

Arsenal then travel to Dublin to face Real Betis two days after Odegaard’s scheduled return, before home friendlies against Borussia Dortmund and Como round off preparations.

Tight turnaround for late World Cup stars

Eight Arsenal players went deep into the World Cup, involved right up to the final weekend. Their reward is a severely compressed pre-season.

August 10 is the earliest those players can report back, just six days before the Community Shield against Manchester City. From there, they will have only 11 days to build match fitness ahead of the Premier League opener, when Coventry visit the Emirates on August 21.

Some are better placed than others. David Raya and Martin Zubimendi barely played across the summer and should be ready to step straight in. Eberechi Eze, Noni Madueke and Mikel Merino saw more action but did not carry a heavy workload.

The real questions lie elsewhere.

The Rice and Saka dilemma

Two names dominate Arteta’s in-tray: Declan Rice and Bukayo Saka.

Rice has been managing neural pain in his hamstring for more than six months, an issue that never fully disappeared during Arsenal’s title push and resurfaced at the World Cup. Illness complicated his tournament further. Saka, meanwhile, spent much of the summer being used cautiously by Thomas Tuchel, who confirmed the winger was still playing through an Achilles problem.

Both are due back in London in the coming weeks. Both are central to everything Arsenal want to be this season. And both may need something managers hate to hand out in August: more time off.

Arteta and his medical staff will assess them on their return, weighing short-term demands against the risk of carrying fatigue and pain into another nine-month campaign. Arsenal’s pre-season schedule is set. The squad is slowly reforming. But how bold they are with Rice and Saka could define the start of their season.