Arsenal Squad for Barclays Asia Trophy Announced

This morning, Arsenal released the 27-man squad for its preseason matches in Singapore. The roster is filled with nearly every first-team player which makes it stronger than most preseason tour squads in recent years. The two Copa America entrants, Alexis Sanchez and David Ospina, are not in the squad as they have been given more time to recover. Likewise, Serge Gnabry has not yet returned to training due to his involvement in Germany's Euro U-21 squad. The only other first-teamers missing the tour are Danny Welbeck and Tomas Rosicky as both have slight injury knocks. As expected, new signing Petr Cech is in the squad as well.

In the fringe first-team players likely to be sold category, both Wellington Silva and Jon Toral were excluded from the tour. Joel Campbell is not yet with the team as Costa Rica just kicked off their Gold Cup campaign last night. The former two's exclusion from the tour likely signals their eventual moves from the club. While both had their best loan seasons to date last season, the two just cannot seem to break into the crowded attacking midfield depth chart.

Arsene, as always, has included a decent amount of youngsters in his preseason squad. Chuba Akpom, Daniel Crowley, Alex Iwobi, Gedion Zelalem, Chris Willock, and summer signing Jeff Reine-Adelaide all made the cut. It will be the first chance for Gunner fans to watch the young French forward in action after his move to London from Lens in the summer. I, for one, am excited to see them all get action, the purpose of Asia tour matches is to get a fanbase unreasonably fired up for their young prospects.

Arsenal begin their preseason action next Wednesday, July 15th, against a Singapore Select XI. All matches are set to be streamed live on NBC Sports Live Extra. Stay tuned to this site for pre-preseason match coverage.