Rice carried a troublesome injury for six months last season (Picture: Adam Davy/PA Wire) Arsenal got over the line last season and ended their 22-year wait for a Premier League title. But the draining campaign pushed the squad to its limits. 63 games across four competitions placed huge demands on the squad with five members of the group racking up more than 4,000 minutes of playing time. Only two players in Europe’s top five leagues managed more minutes for club and country than Declan Rice who was among the walking wounded at the World Cup. Bukayo Saka returned from injury in April to help finish the job but he too was not at full pelt during the summer. The effects of Jurrien Timber’s groin problem that first emerged in March are still lingering while the biggest blow has come in the form of a back injury for William Saliba with the France international facing a lengthy spell on the sidelines. Arsenal have added one of the league’s most robust midfielders in Bruno Guimaraes to the squad this summer and have relieved themselves of the sizeable weight of expectation they carried on their backs last season. Get the latest transfer news every morning Sign up to our daily football newsletter for personalised updates on who your team is trying to sign and who won't be around next season. After Sunday’s Community Shield cruise against Manchester City, the visit of newly promoted Coventry City awaits on Friday night. So who is ready for the battle ahead? When will William Saliba return from his back injury? Saliba carried a back issue into the World Cup, succumbing to the pain when he was forced off in the semi-final defeat to Spain. There was the immediate question of whether the centre-half would undergo surgery to address the issue with Saliba and Arsenal eventually deciding against it after consulting specialists and opting for their own ‘recovery programme’. Saliba back problem worsened during the World Cup (Picture: AP Photo/David J. Phillip) Saliba is currently in ‘rest mode’ according to Arteta with the centre-half unlikely to be involved in any form of training in the coming weeks. While surgery was ultimately not deemed necessary, there is still a long road back. ‘We haven’t been told exactly what the issue is. But back injuries by nature are complex,’ Stephen Smith, CEO and founder of Kitman Labs which specialises in injury welfare and performance analytics told Metro. ‘Surgery always carries its own risks and recovery burden so conservative management is always preferred. ‘Arteta describing his current situation as being in ‘rest mode’ is the right phase for him right now. With any back injury protocol, you need to allow any of the inflammation or tissue stress to settle before any progressive loading can begin. Then it will move from rest, to low load movement, to core and stability work before then beginning the football side of things before going all the way back into full training. ‘With something like that you are talking about a three-or-four-month timeline. That is typically what we see for a significant back injury.’ Jurrien Timber latest Timber’s absence from the team during the back end of last season was particularly troublesome. The Dutchman picked up a groin injury in the victory over Everton in March, an issue that was initially believed to be relatively minor. He had no further role to play in the league title-winning campaign, returning off the bench in the Champions League final against Paris Saint-Germain only to withdraw from Netherlands’ World Cup squad a week later. Timber still some weeks off a return (Picture: Getty) ‘Typically you can detect the early stages of groin injuries that you can manage and play through which I think is what we saw for a while,’ Smith said. ‘Obviously, he wasn’t responding to that mixture of rest and management that they were providing. It wasn’t working.’ In June, he underwent minor surgery to address the issue and has been back in light training in recent weeks. ‘I t
