Arsenal pre-season in chaos as Gunners forced to CANCEL USA tour just days before flying after Covid-19 outbreak at club
ARSENAL’S pre-season plans have been thrown into chaos after a coronavirus outbreak in the camp scrapped their tour to America.
The squad were due to fly out to Florida this week but a small number of players and staff have been affected.
A round of testing on Monday showed up the positive results, with the squad again tested on Tuesday before they were due to fly out on Wednesday.
However the trip has been cancelled, as has the game against Inter Milan that was scheduled for Sunday night in the Florida Cup.
The winners of that game, at the Camping World Stadium in Orlando, would have faced Everton or Colombian side Millonarios in the final on July 28.
The Toffees are still planning to compete in the tournament.
Arsenal kick off the new Premier League season against Brentford on August 13.
Mikel Arteta’s side suffered a shock 2-1 defeat to Hibernian in their opening summer friendly last week and then salvaged a 2-2 draw at Rangers on Saturday.
They are now searching for opponents to face over the next 10 days ahead of two other pre-season fixtures on their calendar.
They have games in North London against Chelsea and Tottenham to come on August 1 and 8 respectively.
Albert Sambi Lokonga joined in training for the first time on Monday with his new team-mates.
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The 21-year-old midfielder has completed a £17million move from Anderlecht and will wear the No23 at the Emirates.
News of the Gunners outbreak comes just hours after Chelsea were pictured flying to Ireland for their own preparations for the new campaign.
Thomas Tuchel, though, is without a number of first-team stars still on holiday after their Euro 2020 exploits.
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