Published: 26 July, 2015
by TOM FOOT at the Emirates Stadium

ARSENAL recaptured the Emirates Cup in style this weekend after scoring seven and without conceding a single goal.

The Gunners were back on a winner’s podium with a silver trophy with red and white ticker tape falling around them for the second time in two months, since May’s FA Cup final glory at Wembley.

After a comfortable 1-0 win over Wolfsburg today, manager Arsene Wenger said: “Today was perhaps less spectacular than yesterday. But overall it was two good days. The real truth starts here on August 8 against West Ham.”

The Emirates Cup is always something of a holiday yawn for the fans, despite the club’s best efforts to hype it up with loud music and film montage. On the big screens, Arsenal players appeared clad in Transformers-style robot armour, like characters from a Marvel comic book series. And, after the 6-0 superhero football against Lyon on Saturday, you would think that a straightforward 1-0 win over Germany’s second best side would be a case of "the less said about this the better".

But there was a solid home-debut clean sheet for new signing Petr Cech, a key signing who Wenger said after the match was a “good communicator who brings a sort of calmness and confidence to the defenders”.

There was a well-taken goal from Theo Walcott, started down the middle, and who Wenger said was on the brink of signing a new contract. He praised him as “not an aggressive but a mobile striker”.

And there was a glimpse of a potential future star in the 17-year-old Jeff Reine-Adelaide, whose tricky turns and flicks wound rings around some of the Wolfsburg players, but also saw him caught out several times when the crowd were shouting at him to release.

Wenger said: “He has fantastic potential, but in some situations, he plays the the game of a 17-year-old player. He is very advanced physically for his age.”

Walcott put the Gunners ahead on 60 minutes after being put through by Reine-Adelaide and tucking it past keeper Diego Benaglio confidently.

The visitors had edged possession and out-shot the Gunners in the first half, but every attempt on goal was thwarted by the Gunners’ new brick wall in goal: Cech. The former Chelsea number one showed off good distribution skills, too, setting one explosive counter-attack running with a pin-point long punt to Mesut Ozil.

Captain Mikel Arteta was back in a starting line-up, although after eight months out he was understandably off the pace, and another old-timer, Nicklas Bendtner, got a standing ovation when he was subbed off for Wolfsburg shortly before full-time.

ARSENAL: Cech, Monreal, Gabriel, Chambers, Bellerin, Walcott (Giroud), Cazorla, Ozil (Akpom), Reine-Adelaide (Chamberlain), Wilshere (Hayden), Arteta (Ramsey).
Attendance: 59,815.