‘Youngsters have shown personality and quality’

In Arsene Wenger’s own words, we looked ‘a bit jaded’ when slipping to our first defeat of pre-season against Chelsea at the Bird’s Nest Stadium in Beijing on Saturday.

Fielding an experimental side with players filling in in unfamiliar positions, we fell behind to a quick-fire double from Willian and Michy Batshuayi just before half-time, with the latter completing the scoring soon after the break.

However, despite ending our tour with defeat, the manager feels this two-week trip to Sydney, Shanghai and Beijing will benefit his players - particularly the younger ones - in the long run.

“I played some boys with a lack of experience in unusual positions to see how they can cope with it,” Wenger told Arsenal Player. “Chelsea went for a regular team from the start on and I had a mix in one half and in the second half. We paid a little bit for it, but despite that, it was not all negative.

“We had some very good moments in the game as well, but we couldn’t score. Overall, I think there were lots of positives in the game. We lacked a bit of experience in decisive positions.

“They [the younger players] learned that every ball at that level is important. You cannot be at 95 per cent in these kind of games.

“You have to be completely 100 per cent committed and they paid for every mistake. The pace of the game was much higher than they are used to. They will go home with plenty of things to think about and hopefully they will learn quickly from it.

“As well, I must say there were a lot of positive from some young players. They have shown personality, quality and that they have a good chance at that level.”

More than 230,000 fans attended our four tour fixtures - and the support shown to the team will live with the manager for a long time.

“It’s unbelievable what we got in terms of attendances,” Wenger added. “The positives are that we experienced how much people love us all over the world.

“I think it’s a great experience for the players to live with each other for two weeks. We had good and bad moments because we traveled a lot, but the preparation was positive and it’s good to go home.

“I think we will benefit from the time we spent together. Now we go straight into the Emirates Cup and therefore it’s important to recover.”

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