Wenger a fan of Kagawa

Gunners boss aware of Dortmund ace

Arsene Wenger has heaped praise on Borussia Dortmund's Shinji Kagawa before discussing the growing strength of Asian football.

The Arsenal manager is a known admirer of Kagawa and considers the 22 year-old as one of Dortmund's dangermen ahead of their opening Champions League clash on Tuesday.

"Kagawa is a very mobile player, he is very clever, very creative and is very quick in the box and that is why he is a proven goal-scorer," said Wenger.

Having spent 18 months managing J-League's Nagoya Grampus Eight in the mid-nineties, Wenger has a keen interest in Japanese and Asian football in general.

The Frenchman currently has South Korea captain Park Chu-young and rising Japanese starlet Ryo Miyaichi in his squad, and believes Asian football is on the way up.

"Miyaichi is not here, he is just coming back from injury and is playing for the reserves on Tuesday at Bolton," Wenger explained the 18 year-old's absence from the match-day team.

Progress

"But (Kagawa and Miyaichi) are very interesting players. I think it just shows what is happening all over the world at the moment, the push of Asian football towards the top quality.

"We saw it at the World Cup last year where teams like Japan did very well, along with North and South Korea.

"Asian football is pushing hard. We were in China before the start of the season and we saw some very good young players there too."