Arsenal: Arsene Wenger is relieved to be excused from conducting a long pre-season tour at the end of the season

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger is relieved that the Gunners are not embarking on a long pre-season tour ahead of next campaign like the other top teams in England.

The north London club will play two friendly games in Singapore, which is part of the Barclays Asia Trophy and also includes Stoke City and Everton.

But the likes of Chelsea, Manchester United, Liverpool and Tottenham have planned tours to the United States and Australia during the summer, which Wenger feels is a 'nightmare' as players will not get enough rest between the end of the current campaign and the start of the next.

The French manager has also criticised the authorities for deciding to start the Premier League season a week earlier than usual to compensate for the lack of break during Christmas.

"A post-season tour is a nightmare. In pre-season, you have the players under pressure with the focus of starting the season well. A post-season tour, I always feel people come along to watch but the players are half on their holidays," Wenger said, as quoted by the Guardian.

"It is a relaxed atmosphere with none of the intensity of a pre-season game. Maybe it is a holiday tour and good to have a relaxed atmosphere together but from a purely football point of view, there is not much meaning – let's be honest."

"I opposed the early start because I preferred to play one more game over Christmas because everybody has the squad that can deal with it and give the players a real rest in the summer," the Arsenal manager added.

"They voted to start early in August and that is a bit of a nightmare. Some players are still playing on June 14 in Europe and then there is the Copa América."

"That is after a season where you have had no winter break. I don't see where you go from there to give the players a proper rest. It is impossible. You have had no rest in the winter; now the decision is no rest in the summer, either."

However, Wenger wants to first ensure that Arsenal can finish this season third or higher in the Premier League, so as to avoid the Champions League qualifying fixture ensuring added rest for his players before the start of the 2015/16 campaign.

"I hope we can benefit from keeping our tour short. In recent years, I was always worried that we had a qualifier for the Champions League so let's first make sure that we don't need that, and then we'll see. It is interesting that we have only one week to dedicate to that [a tour]," the 65-year-old manager concluded.