Arsenal are all set to kick off the new Premier League campaign as final preparations for the clash against Crystal Palace are now complete.
The Gunners should be riding a wave of momentum heading into the London derby after recording some impressive results during pre-season as they were victorious against the likes of Nurnberg, Everton and Orlando City whilst beating both Chelsea and Sevilla by a big margin.
But those were friendlies. Many supporters and Mikel Arteta will likely argue that as good as Arsenal looked in those games, it will count for very little if they fail to get off to a good start against a Palace side who won this corresponding fixture last season by three goals to nil.
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When previewing the game, the Spaniard acknowledged just how tough of a task it will be to win away from home against Patrick Vieira's side, but made it clear to his player that they can't afford to drop to the standards shown during a 30-minute spell at Selhurst Park back in April which ultimately cost them the game.
"They showed last season how difficult they are to beat and how consistent they are at home especially against the big teams they [had] some great results," Arteta said in his pre-match press conference. "They had that result against us. Hopefully we learned some lessons from that day because 30 minutes that we had that day were nowhere near the standards that we needed and we paid the price for it."
With that said, Arsenal's defeat in south London four months ago wasn't that much of a surprise given they've only won twice on their last six visits to the ground - most recently towards the end of the 2021/22 campaign where Nicolas Pepe scored a brace either side of a goal from Gabriel Martinelli.
In the hope of improving on this particular record, as is always the case before a game, Arteta and his coaching staff put the Gunners squad through their paces during a training session at London Colney on Thursday afternoon, with media footage released to get fans in the mood.
And interestingly a major absentee for Friday night's game has been confirmed. On Thursday, Arteta delivered a fitness update on Emile Smith Rowe, Kieran Tierney, Takehiro Tomiyasu and Fabio Vieira, confirming three of the four were expected to train but refusing to reveal who would be missing out.
Amid reports that Smith Rowe is unavailable for the trip to Selhurst Park with a groin problem, it's safe to say those suspicions are true as the attacking midfielder was not spotted in training. The same applies to Fabio Vieira which may delay the £30m summer signing from Porto's debut for an extra week.
However, the good news, is that Tierney and Tomiyasu both took part and therefore should be in selection contention. For the Scotland international he could make an Arsenal matchday squad in a competitive fixture for the first time since March, whilst it's nearly three months since the Japan defender played.
In fact, judging by the images, Aaron Ramsdale, Ben White, Thomas Partey, Gabriel Magalhaes, Bukayo Saka, Martin Odegaard, Gabriel Jesus, Gabriel Martinelli, William Saliba, Eddie Nketiah, Ainsley Maitland-Niles, Rob Holding, Cedric Soares, Nicolas Pepe, Pablo Mari, Albert Sambi Lokonga, Reiss Nelson, Mohamed Elneny, Marquinhos, Matt Turner and Oleksandr Zinchenko were involved which means almost every single Arsenal first-team player trained.
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