Arsenal reportedly played a behind closed doors friendly against Crystal Palace on Monday, the day after their weekend defeat to Manchester City.

The news comes via AFTV, so it needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. This isn’t the first time they’ve had inside information about the club though, with a few lineups and so on leaking through their channels. Also, it would be a particularly strange story to make up.

According to their report, the match took place on Monday at London Colney. It involved the Arsenal first team playing against Crystal Palace players who didn’t take part in their win at the weekend. The Gunners apparently won the match 4-0.

Despite some Arsenal fan doubts about the story, you can see why Arsenal would want to play a friendly like this. You want the chance to test your methods out against different teams, and it’s a good way to build confidence in the game plan.

Perhaps more importantly, it will help both teams build fitness. Palace need their back up players getting as much match practice as possible, and the same is true for Arsenal.

Presumably the full first team didn’t play an entire 90 minutes, but a half or so to keep things ticking over is no bad thing. Hopefully it helps against Chelsea this weekend.