He's behind you! Van Persie looms large as Arsenal squad greet fans in Malaysia



It seems that despite their best efforts to sweep the Robin van Persie saga under the carpet, Arsenal can't quite escape the shadow of their wantaway captain.



The club are currently on their latest tour of the Far East, and held a Q&A with fans at a Malaysian school on Monday.



Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Andre Santos, Theo Walcott, Wojciech Szczesny, Kieran Gibbs and Ryo Miyaichi handled the questions, but it was the picture of the skipper - absent from this trip - on a giant poster behind them all that drew the most attention.



Van Persie has publicly declared he will not be signing a new contract with the club and is wanted by Manchester duo United and City, as well as Juventus.



Wenger said on Sunday he would not stand in the way if the striker wanted to leave and insisted the club would remain competitive without him.



Keeping an eye on you: Arsenal players held a Q&A at a school in Kuala Lumpur having been mobbed by fans







He said: 'We are very, very ambitious. Not only very ambitious but also very proud of the way we run the club.

‘For me, the size of a club is down to the size of the support. It can be the size of the cheque book to others but, for me, it’s the size of the support. You cannot question the size of the club when one player leaves or goes. That’s not linked.’



He added: ‘Robin Van Persie is a world class striker. I am a big supporter of him and I have supported him throughout. We took him very young, he has one year left and he is in demand.



'It is our desire to keep him, but we’ll do what’s in the best interests of the club. If you have a decoder in your head, you can decode that.’

As for the rest of the squad, long gone are the days when Arsenal spent pre-season locked away in the foothills of Hungary and Austria, playing the likes of Szombathelyi Haladas in preparation for the new campaign.

Go go Gunners: The players posed up with a cannon much like the one that appears on the club badge







Over the next two weeks they will take in Malaysia and China - as well as a match against Manchester City - in what is a trip designed to tap into the Asian market.

Before the Q&A at the school, the players were mobbed by hundreds of adoring fans in Kuala Lumpur who clamoured to get autographs and take pictures of their idols.

Fans queued outside the team’s hotel to catch a glimpse of the likes of Oxlade-Chamberlain, Mikel Arteta and Alex Song, and then hundreds attended an autograph session later in the day.

Wenger admitted last month that the club’s tour was a ‘compromise’ to commercialism, adding: ‘We had a rational, methodical approach to our pre-season and we have sacrificed some of that.’



Even Gunnersaurus came too: The club hope to continue tapping into the Asian market

So glad you're here: Fans took part in some training drills with Alex Song and others

So glad you're here: Fans took part in some training drills with Alex Song and others





But even he must have been impressed by the fervour of the club’s Malaysian fanbase, who cheered the team at every turn.



Arsenal take on a Malaysian XI on Tuesday at the Bukit Jalil Stadium, before moving on to Beijing to play City on Friday. They visit Hong Kong after that to play local side Kitchee on July 29.



Fans in the Far East can expect to see some of Arsenal’s next generation on the tour, with Wenger naming Serge Gnabry, Chuks Aneke and Benik Afobe as ones to watch this season.



They may feature in the absence of the likes of Lukas Podolski, Olivier Giroud and Per Mertesacker, who have stayed behind to work on their fitness after the European Championships.



