Generally speaking, Asia is taking over. Whether its China for industry and economy or Japan or South Korea for their heigh tech infrastructure and appeal, Asia is an ever growing and extremely valuable market, and nowhere else than football is that more apparent. Premier League matches featuring Asian players attract more viewers than the biggest of derbies. From Park Ji-Sung to Lie Tie, and more recently Ryo Miyaichi and Ju-Young Park, both Gunners players, the Asian presence has been getting bigger and bigger.

It is now commonplace for friendlies, but also important competitive games like the Club World Cup to take place in the far east, and how you could you forget the first Asian World Cup back in 2002? However where games are played isn't everything, and when you look at the players Asia is producing, they actually aren't at all bad.

More and more talents are emerging: the first superstar to really come out of Asia was Hidetoshi Nakata, but now Park Ji-Sung, Keisuke Honda, Park Ju-Young and Ki Sung Yueng are the biggest names. It is also clear that talent for the future is there, with Ryo Miyaichi no doubt the biggest superstar in the making.

I reckon it won't be at all long before we see an Asian player ranked as one of the best in the world, especially when China get their act together. We haven't seen a lot of talent come out of China, Sun Jihai probably the biggest name, but get a few football academies in there and I'm sure they'll start takeover as well.