Mesut Ozil, Hector Bellerin and Rob Holding all featured for Arsenal in a behind-closed-doors friendly against Reading during the international break.
The game - which finished 2-2 - was held at London Colney with Unai Emery keen to give minutes to the members of his squad who hadn’t been called up to represent their national teams over the past fortnight.
Ainsley Maitland-Niles, Emile Smith Rowe and Shkodran Mustafi were also involved, as was Gabriel Martinelli - who scored one of Arsenal's goals. But Goal has learnt that Alexandre Lacazette wasn’t risked, with the France international close to a return to fitness following six weeks out with an ankle problem.
Lacazette has been progressing well during the past couple of weeks and is back training outside, but last Friday’s friendly was considered a bit too early for him to be involved.
The frontman is expected to join in with full training this week, however, when Arsenal’s internationals return - with a decision over his possible involvement against Sheffield United on Monday due to be taken in the coming days.
Bellerin, Holding and Kieran Tierney could all feature in the squad for Monday’s trip to Bramall Lane.
Scotland boss Steve Clarke had hoped to call Tierney up to his squad during the international break, but it was decided that the left-back should remain at Arsenal to work on his fitness having only just returned from a long injury lay-off.
“We were close to selecting Kieran,” said Clarke. “Obviously, Arsenal have indicated to us that they’d prefer us not to select him at this moment in time because he’d only played 70-odd minutes of football.
GOAL
No comments:
Post a Comment