Arsenal lay down marker with Community Shield stroll past City
Arsenal's Martin Odegaard (left) celebrates scoring their side's third goal of the game during the FA Community Shield match at the Principality Stadium, Cardiff. Picture: Adam Davy/PA Wire.
Ex-pros like to say only the winners of the Community Shield claim it carries any great meaning. This, however, felt different.
Arsenal dominated from start to finish in a match in which Enzo Maresca had an opportunity to show Manchester City players and supporters that everything was going to be alright after he replaced Pep Guardiola at the helm.
That veneer of confidence lasted all of 23 seconds before Riccardo Calafiori fired an attacking Arsenal side ahead. Kai Havertz deservedly headed the Premier League Champions into a two-goal lead inside half an hour. Inspirational captain Martin Odegaard sat down sorry City keeper Gianluigi Donnarumma before rolling in a third just three minutes into the second half.
Game over.
Neither team was at full strength with so many of their respective squads returning to training less than a week ago, but a marker was definitely laid down.
Arsenal have failed to defend the league title since the 1930s and there are no points on offer for winning this glorified pre-season friendly, but they will approach this Friday night’s season opener at home to Coventry with renewed confidence and conviction.
Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta’s midfield axis of teenage sensation Myles Lewis-Skelly and new signing Bruno Guimaraes won their battles; Arsenal keeper David Raya and his defence were impregnable and the Champions’ oft-derided attack did enough to have more of an impact than Erling Haaland and his FA Cup winners.
An indication of how much Arsenal wanted to use the occasion came after 23 minutes in the form of a sliding tackle by Gabriel on Jeremy Doku, which Arsenal’s Brazilian defender celebrated like a goal.
Arsenal moved the ball faster than in recent memory and a quick break by David Raya to Christos Tzolis ended in a booking for City’s Phil Foden as he fouled the mercurial Greek winger on his Arsenal debut.
Noni Madueke was even more effective down the right and he was involved early in the build-up to Arsenal's 28th-minute second. His pass to Martin Odegaard was the prelude to an exquisite cross to the far post, where he had picked out the head of Tzolis, who redirected the ball back into the middle of the area where Havertz nodded in from just inside the six-yard area.
City fought back Haaland good low shot well saved by Ray and Ben White a brilliant block to deny Doku.
Maresca’s men did not record a second-half attempt on goal until the 74th minute.
For the first time since 2004, Arsenal arrived as defending Premier League champions, with supporters singing a mash-up of ‘Champions’ and ‘Campeones’ for the first time in 22 years.
The Cardiff setting added to the sense of a new chapter, the Community Shield returning to the Principality Stadium for the first time since 2006.
Arsenal had every reason to take it seriously. Winning a title requires obsessive determination; defending one requires finding that obsession all over again, with every rival now desperate to knock you off the top.
Liverpool’s struggles in their title defence last season offered a warning. But Arteta has spent years building this Arsenal side and, unlike City, he still has continuity in the dugout.
Guardiola has gone, Maresca has inherited the enormous task of replacing him and City are beginning a new era. Arsenal, meanwhile, have begun theirs as champions.
This may not count in the Premier League table. It certainly felt like it counted for something.
Raya 8; White 8, Mosquera 8, Gabriel 8, Calafiori 8 (Hincapie 60); Odegaard 9 (Eze 84), Guimaraes 7 (Rice 46), Lewis-Skelly 8 (Zubimendi 75); Madueke 7 (Saka 60), Havertz 8 (Gyokeres 75), Tzolis 8
Donnarumma 6; Khusanov 6, Dias 6, Gvardiol 5, O'Reilly 6 (Guehi 54); Kovacic (Gonzalez 79), Anderson 6 (Lewis 60); Semenyo 6, Foden 6 (Cherki 60), Doku 6 (Grealish 46); Haaland 6 (Marmoush 53)
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