Morning.
Ahead of tonight’s friendly against Bayer Leverkusen, everyone’s doing the training pics thing to see who might be available or not. It’s interesting to see the likes of Declan Rice, Bukayo Saka and William Saliba taking what looks like a full part in the sessions, while there doesn’t appear to be any sign of Jurrien Timber or Takehiro Tomiyasu. Perhaps Mikel Arteta might provide a little info later on if/when he meets the press post-game.
The young players like Ethan Nwaneri, Myles Lewis-Skelly and Ayden Heaven are still involved, and it’ll be interesting to see if their tour exploits earn them some playing time at the Emirates in the two games we have this week. In reality, these are the last two fixtures the manager has to get his senior players up to speed, so maybe there isn’t as much for sentiment as there might be otherwise. I also think tonight’s opposition, with Arteta’s big mate Xabi Alonso in charge of the Bundesliga champions and former Gunner Granit Xhaka returning, adds just a little extra to proceedings.
Tonight is also likely to see Riccardo Calafiori pull on the red and white for the first time. Where he plays might tell us something about the season ahead, and how long he plays for might give us an indication as to his readiness to compete from the very first game. I’m curious to see if he’ll start, or whether Jakub Kiwior or Oleksandr Zinchenko – who are a little ahead of him in their physical preparation – get the nod.
Speaking of Zinchenko, it was announced yesterday that he has changed his number from 35 to 17. I had assumed the club would retire that to honour Cedric, but they are a heartless bunch, so it’s been nabbed by the Ukrainian international. I know it’s not a particularly interesting story in and of itself, but he was a player who had a little bit of a question mark above his head this summer. I think this makes it almost certain he’ll spend the upcoming season with us, bar some kind of…
Source link : https://arseblog.com/2024/08/leverkusen-friendly-zinchenko-stays-hein-on-his-way-to-spain/
Author : arseblog
Publish date : 2024-08-07 06:50:32
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