In just over a month's time, Arsenal's pre-season preparations for the 2023/24 campaign will be underway.
The first week of July ultimately marks the unofficial start of the new season as football.london understands that is when the senior players are due to report back to London Colney for training as Mikel Arteta plots to ensure his side are ready to go against Manchester City at Wembley Stadium in the Community Shield on August 6.
The following weekend sees a brand new Premier League season get underway. The Gunners, who will be hoping to dethrone Pep Guardiola's side, don't have to wait much longer to discover who they will face in their opener as a fixture announcement is due at 9am on Thursday, June 15.
With that said, Arsenal's preparations are close to being finalised. As things stand, the plan, for a second successive summer, is to hold a training camp at the Adidas HQ in Germany which will start on the week of July 10 with a game likely to be played three days later.
Then the squad will travel to the United States of America for their pre-season tour. The first of three fixtures will be against MLS All Stars XI in Washington on July 20, before facing Manchester United in New York on July 23 and then rounding off the trip with a game against Barcelona in LA.
Once back in the UK, the club are planning to host a one-day Emirates Cup tournament on August 2 with the opponents to be either Monaco or Benfica and instead of playing a friendly in Europe on Community Shield weekend, they'll be in action at Wembley against Man City.
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However, Arteta's pre-season plans will be slightly disrupted by the upcoming UEFA Nations League ties, European Championship and Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers as well as this summer's European Under-21 Championship as a number of his senior players are likely to be involved in some capacity.
Currently, Bukayo Saka, Aaron Ramsdale, Martin Odegaard, Karl Hein, Kieran Tierney, Jakub Kiwior and Jorginho are the European-based players that have been called up for international duty with Matt Turner - alongside loan stars Folarin Balogun and Auston Trusty - set to represent USMNT and Thomas Partey likely to be in the Ghana squad for their game against Madagascar on June 19.
Furthermore, Emile Smith Rowe, Fabio Vieira and Nuno Tavares could be in the England and Portugal squads respectively for the European Under-21s Championship.
As a result, fewer senior members are likely to be present at London Colney in the first week of July. If last year is any indication then those involved during the international break will be given extra time off to recuperate so they won't be reporting for duty until after the Germany training camp.
Although Benjamin White, Gabriel Magalhaes, Rob Holding, Gabriel Jesus, Eddie Nketiah, Leandro Trossard, Reiss Nelson, Arthur Okonkwo, Cedric Soares, Albert Sambi Lokonga, Nicolas Pepe and Marquinhos have not been selected for international duty. Therefore, barring any late call-ups or departures, they are the Arsenal first-team players that are effectively guaranteed to be present for the start of pre-season.
Furthermore, fitness permitting, they'll be joined by Oleksandr Zinchenko, Mohamed Elneny and Gabriel Martinelli who missed the end of the season just gone because of injury, whilst Arteta is hopeful of having Takehiro Tomiyasu and William Saliba available at some point.
"I think he will be really close. Hopefully, he will be around pre-season, like Willy (Saliba) to be in a good place," the Spaniard told reporters before the 5-0 win over Wolves. "They have been working so hard. He's a tremendous person, he’s a top professional and we just want him to be available."
Now, taking into account that July 1 is when the international transfer window opens, Granit Xhaka may have sealed his £13million move to Bayer Leverkusen by then so will have said his goodbyes. The same applies to Pablo Mari as well as Ainsley Maitland-Niles with his contract due to expire on June 30.
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