Arsenal win Asia Trophy Final against Everton

They will meet Arsenal in Saturday’s final after the Londoners thrashed a Singapore Select XI 4-0. And rightly so. Despite the best intentions of the Premier League and the tournament’s hosts, this is not a prestigious award. Although none of these encounters are truly competitive, they could have positive ramifications for Arsene Wenger’s squad: Each celebratory scene boosts confidence and morale and reinforces the idea that they could be serious contenders next season.

The heat and humidity will have done a great deal to help fitness levels, but the result looked like becoming embarrassing at times before Ross Barkley fired in a hell of a strike with 15 minutes left.

The final score was 3-1, and although Petr Cech couldn’t keep a clean-sheet in an otherwise good team performance, he made some fantastic saves and showed glimpses of just why Wenger purchased him from Chelsea this summer.

Arsenal are the first team in red to lift the trophy. Despite a heavy workload in the first match against Stoke, Martinez said striker Romelu Lukaku recovered “extremely well” and will be assessed at training. “They have done their homework and he is one of them”, the Arsenal boss added. “I hope the same situation continues and we head into the season with a fully fit squad”.

The first-half against Stoke last night was not an isolated incident, he regularly receives that type of treatment in the Premier League, but that it came in a friendly game simply reinforced the point.

“Against Arsenal, I thought we did well building up from defence to midfield”.

However the signs are good that the England global is ready to start 2015-16 with a bang, as Wenger has praised the attacker for his conditioning ahead of the new campaign.

“No one expects us to win (against Stoke) but anything is possible in football… there’s no reason why we can’t go out there and upset the odds”.

His shot accuracy was also the most of any Arsenal forward who played more than five games previous year registering an impressive 75%.

Gareth Barry: Perhaps too one-paced for a side like Arsenal, he too often failed to track runs from deep from the opposition’s midfielders.

Theo Walcott gave the Gunners a 1-0 lead going into half-time, before goals from Santi Cazorla and Mesut Ozil in the second half put the game beyond the Toffees’ reach.

Cazorla was more precise, though, cutting onto his left foot and finding the bottom corner from the edge of the box just before the hour mark.