While Petr Cech believes that friendly matches can be useful, the main purpose of Arsenal’s pre-season tour is to get fit.
- Cech believes pre-season has been a success despite sickness bug
- Goalkeeper believes main focus on pre-season is to get fit
- Arsenal players doing double sessions
Cech believes that the main objective of Arsenal’s pre-season tour in Australia and China is to get fit and while the games are helpful, they’re not hugely important.
“We had a really strong week of training so it was good to get everybody playing. And in the end when you win the game, it’s always more pleasant,” he said.
“Because the main purpose is to get fit. And obviously the matches are a good test for us and to keep fit as well.
“In Australia, it was more about the offensive game; [against Bayern] we had to defend as well. It’s always good when you have the hard work done and then you have a positive result.”
The Arsenal squad are currently doing double training sessions in preparation for the 2017/18 season and after their 3-0 loss against Chelsea at the Bird’s Nest Stadium on Saturday, it looks like they need it.
As Cech says, the humid climate in China is hardly ideal, but at the moment the players need to concentrate on getting fit, especially since a sickness bug has swept through the camp.
Olivier Giroud and Per Mertesacker missed out on Arsenal’s clash against Bayern Munich midweek, and Sead Kolasinac was subbed off before half-time after getting sick on the pitch.
Aaron Ramsey has also suffered with the illness, and Theo Walcott is still out.