Pre-Season 16/17

[Jay29]

Arsenal will play five friendlies, starting with a trip to France:

July 22nd - RC Lens vs Arsenal (19:00)

This will be followed by two games in the US:

July 28th - MSL All Stars vs Arsenal - Avaya Stadium

July 31st - Chivas Guadalajara - StubHub Stadium

Then we wrap things up with two games in Norway and Sweden:

August 5th - Viking FK vs Arsenal

August 7th - Arsenal vs Manchester City

The announcement of the Scandinavia tour says the games will finish up Arsenal's pre-season, so it seems unlikely there'll be anymore games after that date.

There's no Emirates Cup this year due to the Euros.

[Jay29]

Friendly against Lens has just been announced for the 22nd of July. It was part of the deal that took Jeff and Fortune to Arsenal last summer.

Not sure if it's a proper first team friendly or an "Arsenal XI" friendly just yet.

[RealGunner]

Best be at Emirates

[Jay29]

It's in Lens.

[RealGunner]

Meh. More travel expense. Need a marketing strategy for these sort of events


I am sure we will play Jeff and Fortune in this match. 9/11 will be kids.

[Jay29]

Pre-season training for the first team starts today. Wenger is back, along with the first team players not involved in international tournaments. So that's:

Mertesacker, Gabriel, Gibbs, Monreal, Debuchy, Chambers, Coquelin, Elneny, Cazorla, Chamberlain, Iwobi and Walcott. Reine-Adelaide trained wearing no. 20. Sanogo involved as well.

Cech, Ospina, Bellerin, Wilshere, Xhaka, Campbell, Alexis and presumably Asano will join training at later dates.

Koscielny, Ramsey, Ozil and Giroud won't be having a pre-season.

Welbeck will be, of course, a long-term absentee.

[Jay29]

More pics at:

http://news.arseblog.com/2016/07/first-team-return-for-pre-season-training-pictures/?utm_campaign=autotwitter&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitter

And:

http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/20160705/59886/arsenal-squad-begin-pre-season-training

[RealGunner]

Our first pre season match is 28th July...

Literally 2 weeks before our 1st PL match. I hope we are doing some vigorous training till then. Or else its going to be another injury ridden season

[Jay29]

We have that game at Lens on the 22nd that Arsenal haven't announced for some reason. Lens have Cazorla on their promotional poster for the game so they're definitely expecting the first team lol.

Ramsey says he won't be ready for the first game of the season - due back on August 1st:

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/jul/07/aaron-ramsey-fears-he-will-not-be-fit-for-start-of-arsenal-season-premier-league-wales-euro-2016?CMP=share_btn_tw

EDIT:

Lens game now confirmed by Arsenal - 22nd July, 19:00:

http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/20160707/pre-season-match-in-lens-confirmed

[RealGunner]

Arsenal held another pre-season training session today, with ten youngsters in attendance.
Matt Macey, Hugo Keto, Chiori Johnson, Krystian Bielik, Ben Sheaf, Marcus McGuane, Reiss Nelson, Donyell Malen, Stephy Mavididi and Chris Willock all trained with the senior squad.

Some of the above youngsters are expected to be involved when the first-team take on Lens on July 22.

Surprisingly Gedion Zelalem didn’t train with the first-team today, while Julio Pleguezuelo, Ismael Bennacer and Glen Kamara continued to be overlooked.

https://arsenalyouth.wordpress.com/2016/07/07/malen-amongst-ten-youngsters-to-traun-with-arsenal-first-team/

[RealGunner]

Look at this

https://twitter.com/XhakaLegacy/status/752125394896248832


Is it too much to want him to get back to his best? we know he is a good player when he is in form. Good to see him working hard. Now that he has accepted his role as a RF. He needs to bring back his running in behind and supporting rest of his teammates properly.

[Jay29]

Cazorla hasn't started training yet for some reason. Hope he hasn't picked up a fresh injury.

Campbell expected to join up soon.

Zelalem, Marcus McGuane, Chris Willock, Bielik and Mavididi all training with the first team. Could possibly make the squad for the Lens game.

[RealGunner]

Never heard of Marcus McGuane

[RealGunner]

It makes an interesting case for Ramsey

He was outstanding for Wales at the Euros. Very much played like he did for us 2 years back. But he doesn't have the freedom Coleman gives him at Arsenal. I think he is that type of player who revels on freedom of expression. We used to play him as a SS really when he scored like 20 goals and he had the license to skill at will.

I am worried that we will continue to play him in a restricted role and he might be willing to leave us for another team who might be able to use him better. Although the problem is that Ozil is better than him in the role he prefers.

Perhaps we can play him as a B2B and give him freedom there. He was not able to form a good partnership with Coquelin. But there is hope he might be able to form a good partnership with Xhaka as he did with Arteta few years back. Xhaka is closest to Arteta we have.

Let's see what happens.

[Chumlum]

Ramsey, during his awesome season, might have scored liked a SS but let's not forget how frequently he made tackles and contributed deep too. Really he was a lung-busting B2B who, had he strung together multiple seasons like that one, would be much more of a star than he is. So I don't know if playing him as a CM is "restrictive" per se--I agree/hope that Xhaka's purchase was intended to have the effect of freeing up Ramsey to be this hard-working tasmanian devil presence again, both a goal threat and an effective helper on defense.

If Ramsey, Ox, and/or Theo have big seasons things could look really good still.

[El Gunner]

He really didn't play SS that season, he was a B2B as Chums mentioned

[RealGunner]

His average position was very much of a SS. That was the season where many complained Ozil was being used as a wide player. Ramsey was occupying his place.

[urbaNRoots]

Ramsey's problem last season was the same as Alexis'.

Both were horribly out of form and uncharacteristically missed easy chances which blew their confidence. Alexis suddenly stopped being able to get past players and Ramsey kept passing to the opposition with no pressure. That led to frustration and more poor performances. It didn't have much to do with their roles, which didn't change from previous seasons as opposed to poor form.

Hopefully Alexis' Copa win and Ramsey's successful Euro result in a big confidence boost and that'll mean they are back to their usual form.

[El Gunner]

Alexis had a Copa win last year as well though, what's the difference.

[Jay29]

Alexis was back to his best towards the end of last season. His issue was more fatigue than confidence, and the long lay-off mid-season didn't help. I'm not worried about him at all.

[AnJl]

I think the duo of Elneny and Xhaka is more necessary at the base of midfield than Ramsey.

Our core needs to be strong, something that we were lacking last season till Elneny was in the team.

I think Ramsey on the right with the freedom to roam with Xhaka and Elneny would really help us during the season

[RealGunner]

According to the Independent, Özil, Ramsey, Giroud & Koscielny will return to training on 1st August.

[RealGunner]

We are going to be 20 points behind Chelsea/united/City by October aren't we?

[RealGunner]

Sanchez came back with an injury. Not expected to be fit by the first PL match.


Great

[Jay29]

At this rate the team for Liverpool is going to be:

Cech

Bellerin - Mertesacker - Gabriel - Monreal

Elneny - Xhaka

Chamberlain - Cazorla - Iwobi

Walcott

Which is a bit lacking

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