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Arteta - We want to entertain on tour

Mikel Arteta says the Arsenal squad are determined to make a positive impression on this year’s Asia Tour 2013.

The first-team squad fly to the Far East on Thursday and play their first pre-season game against the Indonesia Dream Team on Sunday afternoon.

Arteta is looking forward to experiencing new cultures and hopes that the team can entertain their fans on the pitch.

"Last year, I was really impressed. It was my first big pre-season here and you realise the dimension of Arsenal"

“When it comes to the games, we need to put some good performances in and put on a good show,” he told Arsenal Player. “The fans will be excited and we don't know when we're going to get back there. It's going to be important.

“It's exciting [to go on tour]. We're going to see some very different cultures, different countries and we're going to do a lot of traveling as well.

“Just looking at the tour we had last year and how excited people were to see us in their own countries, I think they deserve us 100 per cent involved in that.

“Last year, I was really impressed. It was my first big pre-season here and you realise the dimension of Arsenal Football Club and how big Arsenal is around the world. The amount of support we had and people waiting outside the hotel was absolutely crazy.

“I think that the Club does really well to get to those countries, support them and get them to know us a bit closer.”

A training camp will run during the Japanese leg of the tour, which Arteta believes will be crucial in the long-term as the team step up their preparations for the 2013/14 campaign.

“It's a big thing because this year we're going to spend almost three weeks over there so it's going to be half of our preparation,” he said. “We know that we're going to have to do a lot of activities over there but the training has to be quality as well.

“The boys are going to take those four days [in Japan] to increase the amount of work we do during the day. During the first eight or nine days of the tour, we haven't got much time to train hard because we've got game after game and a lot of travelling as well.

“I think it's important that when we get that break, we get a camp there and get ready.”

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