4 talking points from Arsenal's first pre-season game of the summer

Arsenal kicked off their pre-season tour of the United States of America in the early hours of Thursday morning, facing off against Bournemouth in an all-Premier League clash in California.

The Gunners took an early lead in the game before eventually being pegged back by the Cherries via a very, very deflected goal from Antoine Semenyo.

In typical friendly fashion, the game would then be decided by a penalty shootout, which was won by Arsenal 5-4 thanks to successful penalties from Martin Odegaard, Oleksandr Zinchenko, Jorginho, Gabriel Jesus and Jakub Kiwior.

Here's all the key talking points from the game.

Ticket sales aren't impressive

If you watched the game, we're sure you'll have noticed the rather alarming number of empty seats at the Dignity Health Sports Park.

There were 14,000 empty seats to be exact in the 27,000 capacity stadium in California - meaning that more than half the tickets for the game went unsold.

This isn't a one-off during the Premier League's pre-season tour of the USA, with a reported 20,000 tickets still left to be sold for Arsenal's heavyweight clash with Manchester United. A combination of ticket prices inflating unreasonably and the sheen of these pre-season games in the USA coming off - especially after the country just hosted the Copa America - can be seen as the two key reasons for these poor sales figures.

Dominic Solanke's performance

Dominic Solanke has been heavily linked with a move to Arsenal throughout the 2024 summer transfer window so, as expected, fans were keen to see how he'd perform against his prospective new club.

In the end, he performed pretty well.

The number nine was a constant thorn in the Arsenal backline's side during his 64 minutes on the pitch, creating a few good chances for himself by besting the likes of Ayden Heaven and Jurrien Timber in duels.

While he failed to convert any of his chances, there were plenty of promising signs from the Arsenal target.

Ethan Nwaneri impresses

There was one player that Arsenal fans were particularly excited about on X during the early hours of the morning, and that was Ethan Nwaneri.

The club's youngest ever player - having made his debut as a 16-year-old in 2022 - thoroughly impressed in the pre-season opener in the USA. Nwaneri was able to create two chances for his teammates in the game, but it was his ability to drift past opposition players with ease which got Gunners fans on X particularly excited.

He looks ready to make the jump to regular first-team football during the 2024/25 season.

The absence of Emile Smith Rowe

Emile Smith Rowe's lack of involvement in the game against Bournemouth could perhaps signal the impending end of his long Arsenal career.

The creative midfielder is reportedly set to join Fulham in a deal worth £30m, with Mikel Arteta all-but confirming his departure when explaining Smith Rowe's absence from the game.

"There are things happening in the background at the moment," the boss revealed. "We decided the best thing to do was to keep him away from the game today."

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