The Ugly Inside is the only Saints media outlet to have a man out in China for the pre season tour, find out here what the Daily Echo can't tell you.

Saints have been based for the last week in Shanghai or at least Kinsman, which in a City of 24 million is some 30 miles from the Bund or Nanjing Song which most would con cur is the centre of the city.

After the game on Thursday evening several team members made a personal appearance at one of the many Under Armour stored in. The city and followed it up by visiting Shanghai on a sightseeing tour on the Saturday, not that the city noticed being a sprawl where it takes a lot to do anything that really gets noticed.

But at least Saints are trying and to be honest it is a market worth trying to crack, before I arrived I assumed like most that China was a poor country at least for its general population, in the main that may remain the case, however there is a very wealthy class in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Beijing not to mention the other 100 cities with a population of 1million plus that have the money to put into the coffers.

The centre of Shanghai has more skyscraper than New York and in the last decade or so has doubled its population to become the biggest City in the World with a population of 24 million.

It even has a Disneyland opened in 2016 and at around £68 for a days admission was not shorty of paying customers, very few of them white face's, from the outside it looks much like Disneyworld in Florida, how high is Mickey Mouse I asked a member of staff ? " No How Hei is not Mickey Mouse" was the answer he is playing Donald Duck today.

The official website proclaimed today that Saints have moved up to Xuzhou today, it will be a culture shock, around 300 miles north of Shanghai and with a population of 1 million it is around half way between Beijing and Shanghai but is not the western style city of Shanghai nor the capitals city of Beijing, to be blunt what will interest the locals the most is seeing white faces, even in Kinsman a suburb of Shanghai white faces are rare and the inhabitants are not used to seeing them.

Saints play Jiangsu Sunning whose home is in Nanjing a City west of Shanghai and several hundred miles from Xuxhoe, so Saints will not have to face a partisan home support.

Saints fans coming out of Shanghai will travel the 300 miles on the high speed trains for around £30 for the journey which will take around 3 hours.

What will await them will be anyone guess although I would suspect that it will be a warm welcome from there Chinese people, crime here is very low and graffiti even in Shanghai was non existent, it does not seem oppressive here, the people are happy with their lot, it's safe to walk the streets, no graffiti, no gangs on the streets, they would probably prefer that to there freedom of the UK.

Up to Xuzhou tomorrow detailed to follow !

Photo: Action Images

redandwhitedee added 22:08 - Jul 9 Well if ‘your man’ is the one who wrote that completely useless “match report” for the schalke game, is it really anything to boast about ?? Did he actually leave the bar?
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Shanghai_Saint added 03:19 - Jul 10 I'm a Saints fan that's been living in Shanghai for 25 years. Was at the game in Kunshan but kind of wished I'd been at the bar with your man. Kunshan is a city about an hour's drive from Shanghai, population 1.65m. Shanghai is not the biggest city in the world, Chongqing has a population of over 30m. Apart from those minor details your man got it right.
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Chesham_Saint added 07:44 - Jul 10 Bloody hell, picky or what? If this guy has shlepped half way around the world to see this PR tour, then give him a break. He may not be Henry Winter, but he’s doing his best (presumably).
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SonicBoom added 09:56 - Jul 10 Henry Winter ? Wasn't he The Fonz?
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NewburySaint added 13:16 - Jul 10 May be picky, Chesham, but i agree with redandwhitedee in that this is a terrible article. Ans what's all the stuff about "white faces"? I'm happy to stick with the mundane stuff on the Official Site if this is what else is on offer!
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SaintNick added 15:43 - Jul 10 He is out there to tell us about the tour, the club website gave a comprehensive report of the game which by all accounts wasn't that exciting with two different teams used during the game. I put the article up and ran my eye over it, there was no other way to describe what he was saying, it wasn't racist
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NewburySaint added 13:24 - Jul 11 Just hasn't told us about it very well then!
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underweststand added 07:29 - Jul 12 As some are eagerly awaiting a report on the quality of Chinese beer....and the lack of Caucasian faces in China (population 2 billion and rising) ...we might at least comment on what we've seen on the clubs website videos of the games. Overall impression : two "half-paced" friendly games in some very humid conditions. Good signs: Armstrong looks to be a very good acqusition. Moves around a lot and reads the game well. Redmond looked more like the player we saw two years ago; quick and lively, and regardless of his eventual future Gabbiadini showed some good touches. Yoshida wasn't there to steady the back line and consequently both Stephens and Hoedt were caught flat-footed by fast moving strikers (from whatever level Chinese football is). Gallagher, Targett and Reed all looked to be thinking more about just where they would be playing their football next season, and Forster gave his normal display of indifferent saves and misses, whilst thinking about where he would be moving to in the near future. Shane Long and Charlie Austin are both likeable "fan favbouirites", (and mine) ...but I have to ask myself - Are they really upto another season in the Prem.? An interesting change of venue (China) for an overseas tour, but perhaps we can take a more serious look at the Friendlies we have nearer home in the coming weeks, before making any pre-season judgements.

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underweststand added 07:35 - Jul 12 CORRECTION: should read "fan favourites " of course. Think I need another morning coffee - especially after watching England's exit from the World Cup last night.
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KriSaint added 19:41 - Jul 13 Hi underweststand, I read it as "fave-boo-rites" and thought You had invented a new word right there..., lol ;) ... Yes - Sad to see England out. I was always an England (and Denmark, being danish) supporter. It is always easy to be clever in hindsight, but I think Southgate showed his lack of experience. England were meeting a pretty warn out Croatian team and would have been clever to put in some fresh legs themselves to run over the croatians. Like obvious changes like Dier in for Henderson, Rashford for Sterling and Gary Cahill for either Stones or McGuire, maybe Rose for Young. Fresh legs mean SO MUCH in such a tournament, and god knows there were plenty to pick from. Just my opinion, anyway.

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