Several members of Arsenal’s first-team squad returned to London Colney for the first day of pre-season training this morning and, with just 11 days to go until the first pre-season friendly takes place against Barnet at Underhill, attention is already beginning to turn to the new campaign.

The nine members of the first-team squad who participated in the World Cup ( Abou Diaby, Bacary Sagna, Cesc Fabregas, Robin van Persie, Carlos Vela, Alex Song, Gael Clichy, Emmanuel Eboue and Nicklas Bendtner) were all absent as was manager Arsene Wenger who is still at the showpiece event in South Africa. Wenger previously stated that he will rule each player who has taken part in the World Cup out for four weeks before they will be fully re-incorporated into his squad, although that process could take considerably longer in Bendtner’s case, with the Dane suffering with a groin problem. Long-term absentee Aaron Ramsey’s return date is currently unknown.

All of that leaves Wenger with 16 members of his 26-man squad currently available, four of which are goalkeepers (Manuel Almunia, Lukasz Fabianski, Vito Mannone and Wojciech Szczesny). There are plenty of attacking options available with Andrey Arshavin, Theo Walcott, Tomas Rosicky, Samir Nasri, Eduardo and new signing Marouane Chamakh all raring to go, whilst Thomas Vermaelen and Johan Djourou are currently the only first-team centre-backs at the club, although that situation is likely to be rectified shortly with the acquisition of Laurent Koscielny from Lorient. Jack Wilshere is back at the club following his successful loan spell with Bolton Wanderers, whilst Kieran Gibbs and Armand Traore will battle it out for the right to be Clichy’s deputy next season.

Given that Wenger usually takes a squad of 22 players to Underhill, he is likely to dig deep into his resources for this fixture. Of the 27 young professionals, Francis Coquelin and Luke Freeman are out on loan, whilst Thomas Cruise and Gilles Sunu will be representing England and France respectively at the UEFA u-19 European Championships later this month. None of the 2009 scholars who have turned professional are likely to be considered barring the event of several injuries.

Wenger will, however, probably call upon some of the more experienced young professionals, such as Craig Eastmond, Kyle Bartley, Gavin Hoyte, Henri Lansbury, Emmanuel Frimpong, Jay Emmanuel-Thomas and Sanchez Watt to make up the numbers. Havard Nordtveit should be heavily involved in pre-season as Wenger looks to integrate him into his first-team squad, whilst Pedro Botelho could also be involved but it is difficult at present to see where the Brazilian would fit in unless either Gibbs or Traore left on loan or the latter was sold.

One interesting element of pre-season will be seeing whether Wenger persists with 4-3-3 or reverts to 4-4-2 to accommodate two central strikers.

*NOTE- Robin van Persie will change his Arsenal squad number shortly.

Possible team for Barnet (early prediction)

1st half:

Almunia

Djourou-Nordtveit-Vermaelen-Gibbs

Denilson

Nasri-Rosicky

Walcott-Chamakh-Arshavin

2nd half:

Fabianski

Eastmond-Bartley-Hoyte-Traore

Frimpong

Wilshere-Lansbury

Watt-Eduardo-Emmanuel Thomas



