Robin Van Persie hopes the benefit of a change to their pre-season preparations will prove fruitful come the start of the new campaign, insisting the Arsenal players have been reinvigorated by their summer programme.
Last season Arsene Wenger took his Gunners squad to Austria where they completed a low-key training camp in tranquil surroundings - which was in stark contrast to the whirlwind tour of Asia embarked on this time around.
The week-long trip which took in visits to China and Malaysia, as well as two friendly fixtures has, according to Van Persie given the squad a new lease of life, and believes the change of scenery will have a positive effect on performances on the pitch.
"Hopefully it will have a big impact," he told Arsenal Members at a Q&A at Emirates Stadium on Thursday. "For our mind-set it was quite good to change our pre-season trip from Austria to the Far East.
"We had a bit more stuff to do, it was short and quite intense which was good. I spoke to a couple of the guys and they were all pleased to be there and meet the fans.
"We got a feeling that Arsenal is a really big club - we could feel that. We didn't really feel that in Austria because it is very quiet."
Arsenal's final warm-up game going into the start of 2011-12 comes in the form of Benfica, before the all-important season opener, a late kick-off away at Newcastle United, next Saturday August 13, 5.30pm.
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