Arsenal players are set to return for pre-season training on August 22, a week before they face Liverpool in the FA Community Shield.
This means the Gunners had just 21 days of rest and celebration ahead of the 2020/2021 season.
Some members of the first team will commence training and conduct fitness tests and those whose season ended earlier because they were out on loan will return to London Colney this Friday (August 14, 2020).
William Saliba has been provided with personal sessions due to staying out of football after the French Ligue 1 was truncated due to coronavirus.
The youth teams have also started pre-season training sessions ahead of the new season.
The Gunners will be involved in some behind closed doors friendlies to prepare the lads for the new season.
However, it may come with its advantages for Mikel Arteta, whose squad will be able to spend more time on the training pitch and less in the commercial obligations and travel that increasingly dominate top clubs’ agendas before the new campaign.
Their holiday period also fulfils Arsenal’s minimum obligation to their squads. Standard Premier League contracts state that clubs should not “unreasonably refuse” players from taking three days of annual leave consecutively though there is an acceptance across the game that further extended breaks will prove to be impossible after COVID-19 forced the domestic season to run until August 1.
