Takehiro Tomiyasu isn’t in Japan’s squad for their first game of the AFC Asian Cup, as he continues to work on a full recovery from injury.

Japan begin their participation in the AFC Asian Cup with a game against Vietnam on Sunday morning at 11:30 GMT, but Arsenal’s Takehiro Tomiyasu won’t be involved in the match.

Japan have named their 23-man squad for the game, and Tomiyasu isn’t involved in the starting lineup or on the bench.

The Asian Cup allows teams to bring 26 players to the tournament, but only 23 can be named in any given squad. As a result, there will always be a few players missing.

As for why Tomiyasu is the player left out on this occasion, it seems the defender is still working on his recovery from injury.

Until the last couple of days, Tomiyasu hadn’t been involved in full training with Japan, instead taking on an individual workload while the main session went on without him.

That changed on Friday, when Tomiyasu joined full training for the first time.

Tomiyasu was also involved in full training on Saturday, and there have been no reports of a knock in that final session.

The other two players missing from Japan’s squad against Vietnam on Sunday are Kaoru Mitoma, who is injured, and Yuta Nakayama, who was also training individually until the last couple of days.

Japan won’t be taking anything for granted against Vietnam, but as the favourite to win the tournament, the team may feel they can afford to be patient with Tomiyasu during the group stages.

The tournament will only get tougher as it goes on, and they’ll need the Arsenal man then.