Plenty has changed at Arsenal since their last visit to the United States in the summer of 2019. Of course, the manager but most notably the playing squad.
Planned trips to America have been shelved in recent years due to Covid-19, but the Gunners are making up for lost time with a 10-day tour which includes a friendly in Baltimore, Maryland against Everton and then on to Orlando, Florida to face Orlando City and London rivals Chelsea.
Three years ago, Arsenal - managed by Unai Emery - pitted their wits against Colorado Rapids in Denver, Bayern Munich in Los Angeles and then Real Madrid in Washington DC as they recorded wins in the first two games before losing on penalties against the La Liga giants.
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The squad Emery named for the 2019 USA tour included as many as 17 players who are no longer with Arsenal and another who is spending the season out on loan. In fact, of the 29-man squad named only 10 were present in the travelling party under Arteta three years on.
As a result, Bernd Leno, Hector Bellerin, Rob Holding, Ainsley Maitland-Niles, Granit Xhaka, Reiss Nelson, Emile Smith Rowe, Gabriel Martinelli, Bukayo Saka and Eddie Nketiah can be considered the veterans of the Gunners' USA pre-season tours given they are the only survivors from the last visit.
Furthermore, this serves to highlight the rather stunning transformation at Arsenal under Arteta in three years as not only have 23 new faces been added to the squad, but 17 players have been sold permanently whilst James Olayinka didn't make the cut this time around and Tyreece John-Jules is on loan with Ipswich Town.
This also means the north London outfit have spent quite a lot of money to get to this position as only Folarin Balogun, Arthur Okonkwo and Reuell Walters are the new faces present that came through the academy whereas Mohamed Elneny and Lucas Torreira are back after not being included three years ago due to the Africa Cup of Nations and Copa America tournaments being held in the summer of 2019.
Meanwhile not one of Aaron Ramsdale (£24m), Matt Turner (£4.5m), Alex Runarsson (£1m), Kieran Tierney (£25m), Nuno Tavares (£6.8m), Gabriel Magalhaes (£27m), Pablo Mari (£6.8m), Ben White (£50m), William Saliba (£27m), Cedric Soares (free), Takehiro Tomiyasu (£18m), Thomas Partey (£45m), Albert Sambi Lokonga (£17m), Martin Odegaard (£30m), Fabio Vieira (£30m), Gabriel Jesus (£45m), Nicolas Pepe (£72m) and Marquinhos (£3m) were Arsenal players at the time of the 2019 USA tour.
And the money spent to get all 18 players through the door is quite remarkable as the total outlay is £432.1m. Then when taking into consideration the money recouped via sales and that figure increases by £54.1m despite not receiving a fee for Matt Macey, Calum Chambers, Sokratis, Shkodran Mustafi, Zech Medley, Sead Kolasinac, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Mesut Ozil, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette.
Emiliano Martinez was sold to Aston Villa for £20m, Carl Jenkinson joined Nottingham Forest in a £3m deal, Konstantinos Mavropanos has recently sealed a permanent move to Stuttgart worth £2.5m, Nacho Monreal reportedly left for as little as £225k, Dominic Thompson joined Brentford for £3m, Joe Willock completed a £25m move to Newcastle United last summer and Robbie Burton's move to Dinamo Zagreb could earn Arsenal up to £800k.
Overall that's 486.2m in transfer fees with 27 of those deals going through during Arteta's tenure which also highlights the remarkable overhaul he has overseen since returning to the club in late 2019.
With the summer transfer window open for another seven weeks, this could be a final Arsenal US pre-season tour for the likes of Leno, Runarsson, Bellerin, Mari, Maitland-Niles, Nelson and Pepe as they've all been tipped to seal permanent moves away before September 1.
If that's the case and the Gunners, in a dream scenario, manage to bring in Oleksandr Zinchenko, Youri Tielemans, Alex Grimaldo and Lucas Paqueta before their next tour of the United States then the squad will look even more different than it currently does.
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