PL Asia Trophy - v West Ham 17th 1330hrs

Zabba looking forward to the game...
www.whufc.com/news/articles/2019/july/16-july/zabaleta-facing-manchester-city-very-good-preseason-test#LmzmpqJjoZCer08b.99


Zabaleta: Facing Manchester City is a very good preseason test


Pablo Zabaleta knows better than anybody in the West Ham United squad how difficult a task the Hammers have to reach the Premier League Asia Trophy final.

For the Irons take on Zabaleta’s former club Manchester City in the semi-finals in the Chinese city of Nanjing on Wednesday evening, fresh from achieving an historic domestic treble last season.

However, while there may be no tougher opponent around than Pep Guardiola’s side these days, the full-back says the game will act as a perfect tune-up for the challenges which await in the Premier League this coming season.

“It's good to play against my former team and to see some of the Man City players I worked with before,” he smiled, when asked how he feels about facing his old club in his pre-match press conference. “Of course, I've got such great memories from my time at Manchester City. It's a very good test for us, for West Ham as a team, to play against the champions of England.

“We hope we can play a good game on Wednesday and continue building our style of play and everything we need to get the best from this squad."

We are not friends at all when we play against them. We want to win, of course

It is now two years since Zabaleta swapped east Manchester for east London, but many of his former teammates remain in City colours and are set to feature on Wednesday evening. The Argentinian was asked if the knowledge he has of his opponents will help the Hammers, but says any advantage will be negligible against such powerful opponents.

“I know some of the players but of course in a game it’s completely different,” said the No5, who signed a new one-year contract this summer. “You know them when you have to play some one-on-one situations or the way they play, but the game is different. We are not friends at all when we play against them. We want to win, of course.

“We are here to improve, to keep our fitness level up, but whenever you play against the champions of England it means even more, so I hope we can do a good game on Wednesday and, whoever plays, the team does well and we win the match.”

West Ham’s Premier League Asia Trophy semi-final with Manchester City will be broadcast live in the UK by Sky Sports, with kick-off on Wednesday at 1.30pm BST.
 
C1audioBravo: “We will spend a lot of time together on tour. We spent a lot of time at the CFA, we come early and leave late, and we spend plenty of hours together. The fact we’ll have more training sessions will help us improve our game..."

"...We have an early match on the 4th of August. Our main goal must be getting ready for that. We respect every opponent but we also know we won’t be good if we don’t work hard, and any other team can make you struggle..."

“It only depends on our work, on our set of players, on having good recovery in this period where we’ll have two training sessions per day. That’s the deal.”

Pep is going to flog them,start as we mean to go on
 
Manu Garcia training with the squad as if tonight in that vid. Strange as he wasn't named in the tour squad and is supposedly on the brink of a move. Strange to fly halfway around the world if he's out the door already...

It's not Manu Garcia, its Nabil Touaizi (they sort of look alike)
 
Pep Guardiola on the late arrival in Shanghai: “We couldn’t fly for reasons that were out of our control so instead we trained in Manchester. Nothing changed too much. Of course there is jet lag for tomorrow’s game, so it won’t be easy.”
 
DAZN in Canada if you can pick it up?

I subscribe to DAZN, but I think I'd have to setup a virtual IP address or whatever to make it think Im in Canada...might just have to wait the 24 hours and see if it shows up on City TV!
 

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