As Arsenal prepared to face Chelsea in a match in Beijing manager Arsene Wenger said that there is no such thing as a friendly match between the two sides.

The teams will meet in the Bird’s Nest stadium as part of their pre-season preparations but the Frenchman admitted that the rivalry between the two clubs is too intense for the match to be taken lightly.

Wenger said: “Well it’s obviously difficult to predict but I think like (Laurent) Koscielny said it’s a friendly between Chelsea and Arsenal, that means it’s not really a friendly. There is always some pride at stake, some London desire to have a superiority.

“It was a very interesting game in the final of the FA Cup, we play against Chelsea in the Champions League and we play them very early in the season again so in fact we know each other very well, and it’s difficult to know how prepared is Chelsea, how far we are with the preparations but tomorrow will be a good indication. It was good against Bayern (Munich), it’s another test for us before the season.”