Arsenal And Everton To Meet In Asia Trophy Final
Thursday, 16th Jul 2015 07:00 by Planet Swans (follow us on Twitter @swansnews)

We continue our round up of the pre-season games of Wednesday with a brief look at the two games in the Barclays Asia trophy where Arsenal, Everton and Stoke are all competing.

Singapore XI 0 Arsenal 4

Arsenal cruised to victory against a Singapore XI thanks in the main to a hat-trick from Chuba Akpom. The young striker scored in the first half and then added a second half penalty and header for a hat-trick to go along side a goal from England international Jack Wilshere.

Arsenal were always the favourites to reach the final of the tournament on Sunday and so it proved as Wenger was afforded the luxury of being able to rest 10 of his 27 man squad and still coast through to the final.

Arsene Wenger: "Overall it was a positive game because we had a good resistance in the first game.

"We were tested against a very resilient, very dynamic, very mobile and a team with a good collective attitude.

"We were tested and we had to play with pace. Overall I liked the fact that we kept a good team focus and as well that individually, every player had to dig deep. We suffered a little bit to get a good workout."

Everton 0 Stoke City 0

Arsenal will play Everton in the final of the trophy after Roberto Martinez side needed penalties to defeat their Premier League opponents.

The toffees came through 5-4 in the penalty shoot out to secure their place in Sunday's final.

Goalkeeper Tim Howard made the vital shootout save from Marco van Ginkel as the Blues netted all five of their spot-kicks.

Roberto Martinez: “It was a good game for both - Stoke and ourselves will have got a lot out of it in terms of preparation

“When we got to the decisive penalty shootout, it was good that we scored every single one of them. The concentration was terrific and Tim Howard was at his very best.

“It was great to see the composure from the players. It’s good now to look forward to the final.”

Mark Hughes: “At this stage of pre-season I tend to talk about timing at this stage of the season because more often than not that’s what you miss, but I thought the timing of our runs was good, the timing of our passing was good and there were some great angles to our passing as well.

“It was a good competitive game, which I think we all expected that it would be with two Premier League teams going up against each other. That gave the game a little extra edge that you wouldn’t ordinarily get in pre-season against teams from lower divisions."