Arsenal’s pre-season preparations will officially begin at London Colney on 20 July. However, several first-team players are expected to travel to Marbella next week for a fitness camp with Mikel Arteta’s new-look medical and performance team.
As things stand, Arsenal have 10 players still involved at the World Cup and five others on holiday following their own involvement.
Of the 12 senior squad members not involved in the tournament, two, Ben White and Jurrien Timber, nursing knee and groin issues respectively, are expected to travel to Spain. Arteta could also have two backup goalkeepers, Kepa and Tommy Setford, at his disposal, four Hale End graduates, Max Dowman, Marli Salmon, Ethan Nwaneri and Myles Lewis-Skelly, as well as Cristhian Mosquera, Riccardo Calafiori, Christian Norgaard and Gabriel Jesus. At least five of that group have been tipped to leave the club this summer, although little has developed on that front.
Of the World Cup contingent, Piero Hincapie, Viktor Gyokeres and Kai Havertz should be back by the end of July, with Brazilians Gabriel Magalhaes and Gabriel Martinelli following soon after.
It remains to be seen when Martin Odegaard, William Saliba and Arsenal’s seven-strong English and Spanish contingent will return to London Colney, or whether Leandro Trossard will even be among them if his proposed move to Besiktas goes through.
Arsenal have five pre-season fixtures before beginning the defence of their Premier League title against Coventry. A trip to Girona on 1 August is followed by a meeting with Real Betis in Dublin four days later. Borussia Dortmund and Como both visit the Emirates in mid-August, before the Community Shield against FA Cup winners Manchester City rounds things off in Dublin on 16 August.
Coming off the back of a demanding 2025/26 campaign that featured 63 club matches across four competitions, plus an expanded World Cup that does not conclude until 19 July, the latest a summer tournament has run since 1966, it underlines just how little time Arteta will have to prepare properly.
This is not a typical pre-season where players drift back in stages and the manager gets a few quiet weeks to build rhythm, bed in tactical ideas and steadily increase workloads. Instead, Arsenal must integrate new staff, manage the recovery of injured players, monitor fatigue after a gruelling campaign and reintegrate internationals who have barely had a summer, all in double-quick time.
Ideally, any new signings will also arrive sooner rather than later, although with several of Arsenal’s reported priority targets still on international duty, that may prove easier said than done.