White and Timber back, as is Nelson…

Morning all.

We’d just beaten Atletico Madrid 1-0 in the second leg of the Champions League semi-final. One of the players on the pitch that night was Ben White, our right back who has been little short of great for us since moving from Brighton. Horrid injuries, ones which seem to have taken an age to recover from have hampered his last year or so but behind all of that, there’s a very good right back who when together with Martin Odegaard and Bukayo Saka on the pitch, can cause havoc for defenders. You’ve probably already seen Arsenal’s social media pages but if not, Ben White has told us that he’s fit and his knee is good which should be music to every Arsenal fans ears ahead of a new campaign. He’s either fit to stay and play a big part of this coming season, or if he’s itching for a new start somewhere else then at least he should attract a lot of interest from other clubs. Personally, I’d rather he stayed but hey, I’m a softie.

Other good news is that Jurrien Timber isn’t far from being 100% too. Soon he said when asked about a return. Others spotted making their return to the club for pre-season training was Riccardo Calafiori, Myles Lewis-Skelly, Cristhian Mosquera, Reiss Nelson and Gabriel Jesus.

It’ll be a while before we see any of our players who have been on international duty this summer which is a concern of course as the new season kicks off in exactly a months time but it’s not just Arsenal who are going to suffer because of the World Cup. The latest to return are going to be William Saliba and both England and Spain players. As said before though, a number of our players who were involved in the final weekend of fixtures, didn’t play a lot of minutes. Saliba and Declan Rice are the ones we all worry about I’m sure.

I read something on Twitter this morning from Fabrizio Romano, yes, I like to make it clear that I’m not taking his words before making out they are mine, but he says that Arsenal’s transfer plans are firmly in place and there are no signs of the club slowing down. I must admit, I found that that amusing bearing in mind the club have hardly got going yet this summer but anyway, there’s a plan and the club are sticking to it.

We might not like the fact that Arsenal move slower than a tortoise but it’s Arsenal, it’s their way. I know I mentioned this earlier but Bournemouth midfielder Alex Scott has just rejected the offer of a new contract on the south coast according to Sky Sports. Could he be the midfielder Arsenal are trying to sign I wonder as it’s not like his name and Arsenal FC haven’t been mentioned in the same sentence a few times before this summer. Watch this space I guess….

In other gossip, Arsenal are ready to go head-to-head with Manchester United for Roma midfielder Manu Kone, according to L’Equipe.

The Athletic report that Chelsea are interested in John Stones. If they sign him, I’m sure we’ll be reading “Arsenal gazumped again by Chelsea”.

Catch up in the comments.