Arsenal’s new signings Shinobu Ohno and Yukari Kinga were shown off to the media at the Gunners’ London Colney training ground on Thursday….
It was something like Japan 23 – England 3 in terms of journalists, camera men and photographers present and much of the press conference was conducted in Japanese. CATHERINE ETOE was there for SHE KICKS (with her camera too)…and manager Shelley Kerr joined in for a few minutes before training and told the gathering how excited she was to have landed the two World Cup winners.
“They are extremely talented players and we are thoroughly delighted to have them at the club,” she said. “Both have vast experience and I think they’ll have a major impact, not just on our own players but on the league in general.”
Striker Ohno, 30, and defender Kinga, 29, have 116 and 87 caps for Japan respectively and as well as winning the World Cup, they were silver medallists in the London 2012 Olympics. Ohno also has the added experience of Champions League football with her former club Olympique Lyonnais and Kerr hailed her tactical nous while hoping that Kinga, who joins from INAC Kobe, will boost the Arsenal back four.
“In football it’s really good to have versatile and efficient players and Kinga has all those attributes,” she said. “There’s not a defined position [for her] as yet but I think she is so talented she can add to any of the positions along the backline.
“They have many qualities, both have fantastic composure, Kinga’s variation of passing is fantastic and Shinobu, her game awareness is fantastic, she finds spaces that some footballers find difficult but she finds easy.”
That much was apparent half an hour later when, media duties complete, the two players joined their team mates, who included fellow new faces Siobhan Chamberlain and Casey Stoney, for training in Arsenal’s vast indoor arena.
“In the week that they’ve been here they have taken part in a couple of training sessions and they’ve shown their class already,” Kerr added. “They’ve mixed well with the players so I have no qualms about it that they’ve settled already.”
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