Arsenal have released their training video ahead of Monday's FA Cup clash against Oxford United and Emile Smith Rowe is the one notable inclusion.
It's not the first time in the past week or so that the attacking midfielder has been spotted taking part in a session at London Colney as this was the case prior to the Premier League games against Brighton & Hove Albion as well as Newcastle United either side of the new year.
But this session is a little different as unlike those aforementioned fixtures, Smith Rowe is in contention to make Arsenal's matchday squad for the cup tie away at Oxford with manager Mikel Arteta extremely delighted to have the 22-year-old available for selection again.
READ MORE: Every word Mikel Arteta said on Arsenal's Oxford test, transfer latest and touchline behaviour
"Emile can play as an attacking midfielder, as a winger and even as a nine; I think he’s played there before," Arteta told football.london. "First of all, we need him fit and at his best, and when we have that, we have an incredible player that we have missed a lot in the last few months. Tomorrow he trains well, he will hopefully be available to give us something in the game."
Now, it should be noted that the training footage uploaded to Arsenal.com is from Saturday's session at London Colney so it remains to be seen what happened 24 hours later. Nevertheless, Smith Rowe said it was "happy days" as he walked onto the pitch alongside club captain Martin Odegaard.
Aside from injured pair Gabriel Jesus and Reiss Nelson, it would appear that Aaron Ramsdale was the only senior player missing. For the rest of the first-team players such as Kieran Tierney, Bukayo Saka and Granit Xhaka, it was straight to work and below is what else football.london spotted from the session.
Smith Rowe nickname
Sticking with the Smith Rowe topic and his nickname is revealed straight out of the gate from the video clip as a visibly happy Odegaard emphasises that 'Emilovic' is back. The skipper then jokingly gives his recently returned teammate a little clip on the head after his wave at the camera.
Gabriel Martinelli skill
Keepy-ups aren't for everyone. Some struggle with the concept even with a normal-sized football, so one can only imagine how difficult it gets with a mini-football. For this particular drill, Tierney could be seen needing more than one attempt to keep the ball in the air, whilst Mohamed Elneny came into shot just as he lost control.
But for Gabriel Martinelli, the task was made to look very simple. The Brazilian youngster juggled the ball effortlessly, not letting it touch the ground once and even remarked that the ball was too light.
Arteta's message to Nketiah
Mikel Arteta takes a serious approach to training sessions. This was confirmed during the All or Nothing: Arsenal documentary when he missed a few sessions last year after testing positive for Covid-19. Despite not being present at London Colney, he was well aware of what went down and he wasn't best pleased with a few players.
"I had a lot of time to watch things, I watched 21 training sessions. There are a few players that train exceptionally well, there is a vast majority of players that train well and there is a group of players that they just come," he told the squad. "The training session on Sunday, if I was here, four players they go out of the training session. Four! Four players after 15 minutes go.
"We are not training in the park, we are not in nursery, and we are not here wasting our time. Too many players laughing, and the other thing is complaining. Someone gives a bad pass, complain. I give a bad pass, it’s his mistake. No. We have to raise the level and it goes for everybody."
More evidence of Arteta demanding the best even in training occurred at around the 3.06-minute mark of the aforementioned video clip as when Marquinhos is in possession of the ball and looking to make a pass, the Spaniard can be heard shouting "Eddie [Nketiah], clever movement".
And when the striker can't retain possession, Arteta responds by saying "you are joking, that's why you lose the ball".
Youngsters called up
Arteta has developed a tradition of calling up some of the club's most promising youngsters to train with the first-team squad ahead of a game. This season has seen the likes of Ethan Nwaneri, Lino Sousa, Reuell Walters, Taylor Foran, Catalin Cirjan, Khayon Edwards and Amario Cozier-Duberry all benefit.
Going into the Oxford game, James Hillson, Bradley Ibrahim and Joel Ideho were the youngsters selected to train with the Gunners' senior players such as Thomas Partey, Takehiro Tomiyasu, Ben White, Matt Turner, Rob Holding, Mohamed Elneny and Oleksandr Zinchenko.
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