The 31-year-old midfielder missed a large part of the last campaign through injury, playing just one Premier League game after November.
He has played just 45 minutes in pre-season so far for the Gunners, the first half of Arsenal’s 3-1 win over Chivas last night.
And Wenger confirmed afterwards the Spaniard may not be completely ready for the visit of Liverpool in under two weeks time.
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Wenger said: “At the moment he is not completely there on the fitness front.
“That’s why I took him off at half-time.
“He’s a bit behind the others physically but I think he will be alright, maybe not on August 14th, but at the end of August he should be alright.”
The 3-1 win was their final fixture on the tour of the USA and Wenger was pleased with what he saw.
“It was an ideal game against a very determined Chivas,” Wenger said.
“Overall I think it was interesting for us because we needed to be patient as they started better than us.
“After 20 minutes we came into the game and we got a comfortable win in the end.
“It was very interesting to see some young players - we had a very young defence.
“Overall it was a positive experience for us.”
