Arsenal: Singapore tour squad cuts hold no surprises

Arsenal’s squad for the preseason Singapore Tour has been announced, but with some cuts. None of which is surprising in the slightest.

Arsenal are inching closer and closer to that August 12th opening day match-up against Manchester City. Nothing matters until then, but until then, we can start looking at how the team is shaping up and any storylines worth following throughout the season.

With the preseason tour to Singapore right around the corner, we are going to see the squad in the highest-profile matches that a preseason can offer. Which, again, doesn’t mean much, but it’s something.

And in preparation for that tour, the squad has been set, with five cuts being made to the squad, indicating, more than likely, that those five cuts won’t take part in the short- or long-term future of the club.

Those five cuts are Carl Jenkinson, Chuba Akpom, Jeff Reine-Adelaide, Joel Campbell and Krystian Bielik.

None of this is surprising in the least. Jenkinson, Akpom and Campbell are all expected to leave the club. The fact that they are still here is pretty amazing, as they haven’t featured in any way for years.

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As far as Bielik and Reine-Adelaide, the two jewels of Arsene Wenger’s 2016 youth shopping spree, they are expected to go out on loan. Both of them faced serious injury lay-offs last year and will need to re-establish themselves among a growing throng of young talent.

Bielik was seen as the future of the defensive midfield, and then of the defense itself, but as mentioned, it was all derailed last year following a lengthy injury that he must overcome this year.

And Reine-Adelaide spent years as the top prospect in the system, only to flat-line before getting hurt himself. He did score in the opener against Boreham Woods though, so it’s very unlikely that he is just done for good.

We can only hope that they will be back soon. Ideally these loans will be the stabilization that they need. We’ve seen them work before, though we have also seen them fail before. Calum Chambers would be the most recent success story, whereas there weren’t exactly very many success stories before that.

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Other than that, the Singapore squad looks exactly the way you’d expect it to look. No one is missing that should raise any red flags and that is all we can ask for as this tour gets underway.

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