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Gunners squad receives a significant lift for the Community Shield meeting.

Mikel Arteta has confirmed that Declan Rice and Bukayo Saka are both in line to return for Arsenal against Manchester City in the Community Shield.

Both players are back in training after their respective breaks following England’s run to the World Cup semi-finals in North America, and they are now in contention to feature in Sunday’s traditional season curtain-raiser in Cardiff between the Premier League champions and the FA Cup holders.

The same applies to Rice’s fellow midfielder Martin Zubimendi, who was part of the Spain squad that won the tournament last month and has now also rejoined Arsenal.

“They will be available,” Arsenal manager Arteta said about Rice, Saka and Zubimendi at his pre-Manchester City press conference on Friday.

“They trained with us today, they will train tomorrow. If they are in the condition we expect them to be, they will be involved.”

Saka had originally been due to report back for Arsenal duty on Monday, but both he and Spain goalkeeper David Raya returned earlier than expected on Saturday.

Eberechi Eze, Noni Madueke and Mikel Merino have also come back from their post-World Cup holidays and all featured in Wednesday’s pre-season friendly draw with Como, along with Raya. However, Arsenal will be without William Saliba for an extended spell because of a long-term back problem that does not require surgery but was aggravated during the World Cup.

Saka managed an Achilles injury through much of the second half of last season, while Rice revealed during the World Cup how badly he had been affected by neural pain in his hamstring since Christmas, before also dealing with a calf issue and a bout of illness.

Even so, Arteta is confident that a few weeks away has been especially helpful for the pair and that those issues will not hinder them going into the new campaign.

“We haven’t noticed anything,” Arteta said. “They have individual plans. Through the time they had with the national team they’ve been trying to evolve those issues and they have improved.

“In the rest period that they had, they both had specific programmes for themselves. They’ve been doing those and so far what I saw the last two or three days, it was really good.”

Arsenal will also be without Jurrien Timber against City, with the versatile right-back still recovering from a persistent groin injury that has troubled him since March.

Arteta admitted earlier this week that the Netherlands international — who missed the World Cup altogether after making only a brief substitute appearance in the Champions League final in May — was still “weeks away” from returning, and that timeline appears unchanged despite a more encouraging update.

“[He is] progressing really well,” Arteta said when asked for the latest on Timber before the showdown with a City side now managed by former Chelsea boss Enzo Maresca. “He’s on the pitch, we're ramping up now certain actions, especially the volume and the load.

“I think he’s on a good trajectory but still a few weeks to go. With Willy [Saliba], it is a more long-term injury.”

When asked if Timber could be back before next month’s international break, Arteta added: “I don’t know. We have to wait and see.

“He needs to start to train with the group in the next week or so hopefully and then see how he progresses from there.

“But obviously it’s been a long-term issue and we want to make sure that every step that we take is the right one. He’s such an important player for us.”