Arsenal v Girona LIVE: Mikel Arteta’s Premier League champions continue pre-season preparations | OneFootball

It is a little over two weeks until Arsenal play their first competitive match of the new season when they take on Manchester City in the Community Shield on August 16. Mikel Arteta’s side will be full of confidence having claimed their first Premier League title in 22 years and the clash at Wembley presents an immediate opportunity to win more silverware ahead of what is expected to be another competitive campaign.

Before that the Gunners will play four pre-season matches with the first taking place in Spain this evening as they travel to take on Girona at the Estadi Montilivi. The match is Arsenal’s first public pre-season game of the summer having beaten MK Dons in a behind closed doors fixture last week.

New signings Christos Tzolis and Illan Meslier featured in that match and both have been selected for tonight’s squad. So too have five players freshly back from the World Cup with Piero Hincapie, Viktor Gyokeres, Kai Havertz, Gabriel Martinelli and Gabriel Magalhaes all training during the week.

Arsenal are also circling more incomings with Newcastle’s Bruno Guimaraes heavily linked to make the move to the Emirates and Real Madrid’s Vinicius Jr a rumoured possibility. Arteta though will only be focused on tonight’s match and continuing pre-season with a win.