Arsenal agrees deal to sign Japan forward Takuma Asano

Best of luck to the lad but I wouldn't be surprised to see him in a QPR/Fulham-type shirt in 18 months.

Still a decent living.

oh, great. The next Ryo Miyaichi

Wenger has a bad record in signing Japanese players. Its basically a marketing ploy/ shirt sales plan. Jun Inamoto was a fairly decent player in his prime and had a good 2002 world cup. Wenger never gave him a chance. Miyaichi was a decent young prospect scouted by European clubs but again he was never given a chance.

exactly, its all about marketing. Miyaichi was always injured as i recall. and when hr did play he was average at best

@Tigers

From the bits and pieces I've seen of Asano, he does look handy. Definetly something different to Giroud.

Not a bad piece of marketing business, even if he doesn't make the grade. I remember Everton v Man City drew one of the largest worldwide audiences for a Premier League game because we took two Chinese players as part of a sponsorship deal and City had a Chinese international. Those were in the days before City were a top 4 side and Everton were, well, Everton.

Great. So now JSports is guaranteed to schedule live broadcasts for all Leicester City and Arsenal fixtures because there's a possibility that a Japanese player will be on the pitch or even the bench. Drove me nuts last season when they kept showing LCFC fixtures instead of other more interesting match-ups even before they started looking like title contenders.

Very bizarre signing TBH, I'm guessing he'll go on loan this season