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Malaysia XI vs Arsenal – Preview
By Tom Humphrey
Arsenal kick off their Asia Tour today against a Malaysia XI. Arsenal started their 2011 Asia Tour against the same opponents, winning 4-0 against their hosts thanks to goals from Aaron Ramsey, Theo Walcott, Carlos Vela and Tomas Rosicky.
The match will be broadcast here in the UK on ESPN in case anybody wants to watch it and will kick off at 2:45pm UK time. For those of you abroad, it may be on a sports channel in your country depending on where you live, but if not, Arsenal Player will be streaming the game live. If you have an Arsenal Membership then you automatically have access to Arsenal Player and if not, you can sign up on the official website or get a day pass for a £1.50 one off payment.
Arsenal have a big fanbase in Asia and are making the most of it following years of going to Austria every summer. It is lucrative for the club to play out in Asia as there is money out there and is a different experience for the players. Arsenal’s Asian Tour consists of today’s game against a Malaysia XI, a game against Manchester City in Beijing and finally a game against Kitchee FC in Hong Kong. The Gunners had planned a trip to Nigeria this summer, but had to cancel. They will be sending some first-team players over to Nigeria (Per Mertesacker, Lukas Podolski, Bacary Sagna and Tomas Rosicky) to take part in activities organised by the club and sponsors. Arsenal’s final game of pre-season is on August 12th against Lukas Podolski’s former team FC Cologne.
It is believed that Arsenal are looking to set up a behind closed-doors friendly to replace the game they had planned in Nigeria. This leaves a big gap in the fixture list and it is believed that those not featuring in the Asia Tour will feature in this game. This is because they won’t have played a game in pre-season yet and for the likes of Lukas Podolski and Olivier Giroud who are new signings, they haven’t even had the opportunity to play with their new team-mates in a match yet. This isn’t good if they’re going to be our main strikers next season. Van Persie will hopefully have left the club by the time the new season has begun, so we will have to see what happens regarding a fixture between the 29th July when Arsenal’s Asia Tour finishes and the 12th August when we play Cologne.