Arsenal returned for pre-season training missing twenty first-team players for their first session on Monday.
It doesn’t come as much of a surprise considering the majority were occupied on international duty this summe, reports the Mirror.
As a result, they’ve since been given extra time off by Arsenal to rest ahead of a gruelling season on all fronts. Only 13 members of the squad were expected to feature at London Colney on Monday due to injuries and international commitments.
Mesut Ozil, Theo Walcott, Danny Welbeck and first-choice goalkeeper Petr Cech were among those who were due to undergo initial tests following their break.
Sead Kolasinac, who signed on a free transfer this summer following five years at Bundesliga side Schalke, also reported for duty in North London.
Arsene Wenger reportedly put the players through a range of assessments to monitor their fitness levels, before undergoing a training ground session with coaching staff later on.
The Gunners’ first pre-season game is against Sydney FC on July 13 in Australia, so there won’t be many training sessions at the club’s base before then.
The players due at training on Monday were:
Mesut Ozil, Sead Kolasinac, Per Mertesacker, Kieran Gibbs, Petr Cech, Lucas Perez, Theo Walcott, Danny Welbeck, Emiliano Martinez, Francis Coquelin, Mathieu Debuchy, Chuba Akpom, Carl Jenkinson.
The players who are set to return at later dates are:
Laurent Koscielny, Aaron Ramsey, Olivier Giroud, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Nacho Monreal, Alex Iwobi, Granit Xhaka, Mohamed Elneny, Wojciech Szczesny, David Ospina, Alexis Sanchez, Shkodran Mustafi, Calum Chambers, Rob Holding, Hector Bellerin, Joel Campbell, Gabriel (injured), Santi Cazorla (injured), Jack Wilshere (injured), Jeff Reine-Adelaide (injured).