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Arsenal v Manchester City
Friday, July 26, 2012
Bird's Nest Stadium, Beijing
8:00 AM EDT/5:00 AM PDT/1:00 PM BST
TV: Arsenal Player (subscriber)
Arsenal's preseason Asia Tour continues in China with a pre-season friendly against Manchester City tomorrow. While both teams are missing big-name players, there's still enough first team members to make this game more interesting than Arsenal's previous fixture against Malaysia. In any event, the quality of the opposition will be better. The match is at 8 AM on the East Coast, and if you have Arsenal Player, you can watch it live. If you don't have Arsenal player, you can subscribe for one day at the cost of about $2.25 or so to see the match live.
Here's some things to watch for...
- How does Arsenal's midfield set up in attack? Does one player hold, allowing Arsenal to send forward their fullbacks, or does one fullback sit back and allow all of Arsenal's midfielders to attack?
- How do Arsenal set up defensively? Do they play a high line and aggressively press, like they did when they beat Manchester City 1-0 at the Emirates, or do they only press in their own half, like they did when they lost 1-0 at Eastlands?
- What's Abou Diaby's role tomorrow? Is he a box to box midfielder, or does he play in the role behind the main striker? Similarly, how does Chuks Aneke do against superior opposition? Does he play in a deeper role in an effort to create from deep or does he emulate Yaya Toure and use his physicality and passing skills just behind the main striker?
- Thomas Eisfeld has often been accused of being weak on the ball thus far during his time in England. Interestingly, he was played in the wider areas, which Arsene Wenger usually does with new players in order to acclimatise them to the Premier League. If Eisfeld plays, does he again play wide, or does he play in a more central role? And, if he plays wide, does that mean his fullback often comes forward to support him, like Nico Yennaris did on Tuesday?
Related: How Arsenal's Midfield Looked Against Malaysia | Follow us on Twitter and Facebook!