All the players not at the World Cup made their return to pre-season today. The first batch of pictures can be found here:

https://www.arsenal.com/news/unai-emery-leads-first-arsenal-training-session

(Follow club photographer Stuart MacFarlane on Twitter for more pics)

On top of the first team players, Matt Macey, Carl Jenkinson, Chuba Akpom, Joe Willock, Emile Smith-Rowe, Reiss Nelson and Eddie Nektiah also took part.

You can also see new assistant coach Juan Carcedo already yelling at someone.


Emery's first game in charge will be Boreham Wood on July 14th. This was originally down as an Arsenal XI game, which usually feature a lot of reserve and youth players. However, the site specifically said that a lot of players who didn't go the World Cup will feature, so it should be a strong team.

https://www.arsenal.com/news/tickets-still-available-boreham-wood-friendly

After that, the team flies to Singapore for friendlies against Atletico Madrid and Paris St. Germain in the International Champions Cup on July 26th and 28th.

Then they fly to Dublin for a game against Chelsea on August 1st. The last friendly is in Stockholm against Sevilla on August 4th.


At the moment, Lucas Torreira David Ospina, Danny Welbeck, Stephan Lichtsteiner and Granit XHAKA are the only players we have at the World Cup. Nacho Monreal, Mohamed Elneny, Joel Campbell and Mesut Özil are currently on holiday and likely won't be back until the end of the month.

Torreria is still in the WC

God, I can't wait for our first game

hold on



who is that 7ft guy next to kolasinac ffs?

Martinez ?

It's Matt Macey, who is 198cm tall.

Guy on the far left is Darren Burgess, the director of high performance.

Arsenal stars return for pre-season training | Exclusive behind the scenes



Kolasinac is a damn beast.

Mustafi losing his balance after one jump ffs.

Here are the pics from today's sessions, including a lesser-spotted Lucas Perez.

https://www.arsenal.com/news/hard-work-continues-colney

Emery‘s first training session, exclusive behind the scenes video.

From two clips alone, our assistant coach seems to be very loud which is good, no Bould whatsoever, Lucas Perez seems to smile a lots for someone about to be sold or maybe Unai has something in mind, Mustafi looks depressed and the Dortmund alliance bonding. Also Bellerin badly needs some haircut, you're not Ramos and this is not 2005.

Looks like they were working on pressing and moving the ball in confined spaces.

Cant wait for the season to start.

The friendly against Boreham Wood is now being shown live on Arsenal Player. Convinced now we're going to see every first team player who's currently in training.

That‘s cool, I could barely wait until we fly to Singapore!

New day, new video released from the training sessions

It's honestly refreshing fans like us could watch and follow the team closely just training and such. It seems quite intense and I can't wait Ozil sweating his butt out just to try and press.

I'll be flying back to Joburg at that time, will catch the highlights soon afterwards though

More training footage:



It looks like Carcedo has been working a lot with our defenders. I've seen plenty of marking drills going on in these videos.

Elneny, Iwobi and Ozil are expected back in the next 10 days and should be available for the Singapore tour.

Ospina, Monreal, XHAKA and Lichtsteiner should be joining in not long after that.

That leaves Welbeck, who will be the last to join, in all likelihood.

Full transcript of Emery's press conference ahead of the Boreham Wood friendly on Saturday:

https://www.arsenal.com/news/unai-emery-press-conference-the-full-transcript

Key points:

-- Squad will be the players who have trained since the start + young players.

-- Said that the squad is 50% of the way through their preparation.

-- Emery has spoken with his team about a new captain, but wants to look at the players to see who is most suited. Said Koscielny remains the "first" captain, but he wants five in the team.

-- Gave a diplomatic response about who will be no. 1 keeper. Wants to see all the keepers before making a decision.

Arsenal team to play Boreham Wood:

Cech; Bellerin, Sokratis, Mavropanos, Osei-Tutu; Maitland-Niles, Willock; Nelson, Smith-Rowe, Aubameyang; Lacazette

Smith-Rowe

What a goal by Auba

Auba 1-0. Wonderful curling finish

2-0 Auba again

Great run by Niles

Love these friendlies against lower league teams. Get to see lots of goals and players having fun.