Arsenal manager Unai Emery has left five senior players behind for the club’s pre-season tour, according to the Evening Standard.
The outlet reveals that the futures of Carl Jenkinson, Chuba Akpom, Jeff Reine-Adelaide, Joel Campbell and Krystian Bielik are all in major doubt after being left out of Arsenal’s pre-season tour in Singapore.
The report claims that Bielik and Reine-Adelaide are likely to be loaned out, with Akpom, Campbell and Jenkinson likely to leave the club permanently in this transfer window.
It is understood that 22-year-old striker Akpom is close to sealing a £2million move to Belgian side Sint-Truiden.
OPINION
It might seem harsh to leave players out of a pre-season trip but if Unai Emery doesn’t see these five players as a part of his future plans, he has no choice but to exclude them and hope they complete moves away from the club before the start of the season. There has certainly been a big clear out at The Emirates ahead of the new campaign, with a number of senior players being sold and a couple of fresh faces arriving, new boss Emery is making his mark on the squad after a single transfer window. Jack Wilshere, Santi Cazorla and Per Mertesacker have left the club, despite being first-team regulars under old manager Arsene Wenger. The five players who have reportedly been axed from the pre-season trip also look likely to leave, but they simply aren’t good enough to be part of the first-team squad anyway. Emery continues to impress, let’s see if he delivers results when the season finally starts.