New fitness guru Darren Burgess puts Arsenal through their paces as Ozil and Kolasinac return for pre-season

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James Benge4 July 2017

Incoming fitness guru Darren Burgess joined the Arsenal squad as they began their pre-season preparations at London Colney this week.

The Australian joined the Gunners last month as their head of ‘high performance’ but will split his time with Aussie Rules side Port Adelaide FC until November.

Burgess was running the rule over a host of Arsenal first-teamers, including new signing Sead Kolasinac, as pre-season training began.

Mesut Ozil, Danny Welbeck and Petr Cech also reported back to Colney after enjoying a summer away from major international commitments.

The likes of Alexis Sanchez and Hector Bellerin are not expected to return to training for several weeks.

Both were with their respective national teams until last weekend – the former at the Confederations Cup with Chile and the latter with Spain’s Under-21 side for the European Championships – and are doubts for the Community Shield on August 6.

Arsenal's 2017-18 pre-season fixtures

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A string of young players also joined the first team as Arsene Wenger observed their progress. January signing Cohen Bramall, Jeff Reine-Adelaide, Eddie Nketiah and Reiss Nelson were all promoted to train alongside the first team.

The quartet are now expected to be under consideration for the travelling party for Arsenal’s pre-season tour of Australia and China. The Gunners fly out on Sunday night, with their first game against Sydney FC scheduled for Thursday July 13.

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