Following last season’s disastrous start to the campaign which left the Gunners playing catch-up for the entire season many would have rightly assumed Arsene Wenger would place great emphasis on the club’s pre-season preparations this year. In the early stages of the close season, all seemed to be going to plan, with the very early (by Arsenal standards!) signings of Lukas Podolski and Olivier Giroud, however since then several questions have been raised as to whether the Gunners will be raring to go by 18th August when they host Sunderland in the first game of the season.
Throughout his time at the club, Wenger has always favoured a quiet training camp in Austria to get his squad ready for the new campaign. However last season the Frenchman finally caved in to commercial demands and reluctantly agreed to a money-spinning tour of the Far East. At first it was widely reported that the manager had only agreed to such a move as there was neither a World Cup nor a European Championship taking place that year. However the tour was so commercially successful that the club once again sanctioned another trip to the Far East this year, despite the European Championships taking place in June. As a result, Wenger has had to leave behind both his new signings (following their participation at Euro 2102) as well as first team players such as Laurent Koscielny and Per Mertesacker, although Theo Walcott and Oxlade-Chamberlain, who were both in England’s Euro 2012 squad, did make the trip to the Far East.
While the absence of first team regulars such as Koscielny is not so alarming, as they will surely be able to fit straight back into the squad once the players return to London Colney, (although Steve Bould would have preferred a full pre-season to work with all the defenders at the club) the fact that Podolski and Giroud are yet to play a game with their new team mates does seem strange.
