Riccardo Calafiori set for Arsenal debut as Bukayo Saka, Declan Rice and William Saliba return for new season

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Evening Standard

·5 Agustus 2024

Riccardo Calafiori set for Arsenal debut as Bukayo Saka, Declan Rice and William Saliba return for new season

Gunners finish their pre-season preparations with friendlies against Bayer Leverkusen and Lyon this week

Bukayo Saka, Declan Rice, William Saliba, Aaron Ramsdale and David Raya are all back in Arsenal training as the Gunners begin their final week of pre-season.

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Arsenal have returned from their tour to the US and are finishing off pre-season with two matches at Emirates Stadium this week.

Mikel Arteta’s side host Bayer Leverkusen on Wednesday before entertaining Lyon on Sunday in the Emirates Cup.

Arteta will hope Ramsdale, Raya, Rice, Saka and Saliba can be involved in those games after returning to training over the weekend.

The five players had been given an extended break by Arsenal after going deep at Euro 2024 this summer.

Saliba reached the semi-finals with France and was named in the team of the tournament, while Ramsdale, Raya, Rice and Saka made the final between England and Spain.

Their absence from the pre-season tour to the US presented an opportunity for young players to shine, with academy stars Ayden Heaven, Ethan Nwaneri and Myles Lewis-Skelly among those to impress.

The trio played in all three games in the States and Arteta believes the academy players are showing they can fight for further first-team action this season. I’m really pleased with all of them,” said Arteta. “Unfortunately I wanted to give opportunities to all of them, [but] we didn’t have enough time to do so.

“But especially the ones that played, I think they performed and responded incredibly well. So that’s something that we take from the tour as well, that we have a lot of talent there that we want to use and they showed that they are very much pushing to earn the right to play with us.”

Riccardo Calafiori will make his debut this week

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New signing Riccardo Calafiori will hope to make his debut this week.

He joined Arsenal on their tour of the US after signing from Bologna for £42million, but did not feature in the final game against Liverpool.

“We had to manage him,” said Arteta. “He had a very busy 48 hours before his flight.

“Then it was the jet-lag and he hasn’t trained with the team yet. We want to build him slowly, to get to know him first. We will have plenty of time to see him.”