Saka, Rice, Raya and Ramsdale Arsenal return date after Euro final

Bukayo Saka, Declan Rice, Aaron Ramsdale and David Raya are expected to return to Arsenal in roughly three weeks following the conclusion of the European Championship final, football.london understands. Only Saka and Rice featured in England’s 2-1 defeat to Spain, but all players are granted the time off following the end of the season.

This would provide a rough return date of around August 5, meaning unless any of the four decide to cut their allocated holiday period short, they will miss the entirety of the US tour. Arsenal travel to Los Angeles on July 21 to play Bournemouth and Manchester United before moving to Pennsylvania to face Liverpool, returning at the start of August.

Arsenal then play Bayer Leverkusen on August 7 at the Emirates Stadium. This game may come too soon for the quartet, however, the Gunners play again on August 11 in the Emirates Cup against Lyon which the club will hope to have all their summer tournament representatives back for.

William Saliba, Jakub Kiwior, Jorginho, Oleksandr Zinchenko, Gabriel Magalhaes, Gabriel Martinelli, Kieran Tierney, Kai Havertz and Leandro Trossard all represented their countries and were eliminated at earlier stages meaning an expected earlier return. Some may make part of the tour while the likes of Martin Odegaard, Jurrien Timber, Benjamin White, Eddie Nketiah, Reiss Nelson, Fabio Vieira and Emile Smith Rowe have been at a training camp in Marbella with Mikel Arteta and will return alongside others this week before the flight to America on Sunday.

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Arsenal’s Under-21s have already been back and played their first friendly of the summer. Charlie Patino and Ethan Nwaneri both featured in Mehmet Ali’s side’s 4-2 win over Boreham Wood and many in the squad will be hoping to try and get a place in the travelling group for the summer.

However, the likes of Saka and Rice have played a huge number of minutes for both club and country this season and will be monitored very closely to ensure maximum recovery. Arsenal are looking at forwards and central midfielders to provide both competition and cover in the two roles.

In 2021 following the Euro 2020 final on July 11 which Saka reached for the first time with England, he returned for Arsenal’s final pre-season friendly with Tottenham 28 days later as a substitute and was then named again on the bench for the first game of the 2021/22 season on August 13.

The forthcoming campaign kicks off on August 17 with a home clash with Wolves. Arsenal will hope to have their key stars back but of course, will be looking to have enough quality to make do should they not yet be deemed to have had enough recovery time.