Close to perfect 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 then sat down sorry City keeper Gianluigi Donnarumma before rolling in a third just three minutes into the second half.
Game over.
For Mikel Arteta, however, this was about more than winning another trophy. Arsenal have spent years trying to reach the summit and, having finally become champions last season, the manager knows the much harder task is convincing his players that they want to climb it again.
“When you've achieved something, it's that willingness to go again,” Arteta said. “Because you want to go through it again. When the desire comes, I want to live that moment again, I want to live all the moments, even bigger than them.”
Neither team was at full strength with so many of their respective squads returning to training less than a week ago, but Arsenal gave every indication that the hunger Arteta has been demanding is still there.
“We talked about the desire that we have to start the season and to show ourselves how much we want it and I certainly saw a lot of positive things there against a top opponent,” he said.
“I’m very impressed in the manner that we played, especially in the manner that we competed so that's a standard for us and if we have the standards at this level I'm sure that we're going to be really competitive.”
Arsenal's midfield axis of teenage sensation Myles Lewis-Skelly and new signing Bruno Guimaraes won their battles; 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 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 was involved early in the build-up to Arsenal's 28th-minute second. His pass to 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's good low shot well saved by Raya and Ben White producing a brilliant block to deny Doku.
Maresca's men did not record a second-half attempt until the 74th minute. Maresca admitted the early goal had made life considerably harder for his new side.
“I think the goal we conceded after 25 seconds unfortunately affected the game in that moment,” he said. “I think after the goal, the reaction was quite good before they scored the second one, we had three or four chances to score and draw the game but unfortunately we conceded the second one and it became more complicated.”
The Italian was reluctant to draw too many conclusions from his first competitive match in charge, with City's Premier League campaign beginning next weekend.
“We have many things to work [on]. The season's just started so there are many things we need to do better but even when we win games there are things we need to do better.”
For the first time since 2004, Arsenal arrived as defending Premier League champions. 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 have failed to defend the league title since the 1930s, while City are beginning a new era without Guardiola. Arteta, meanwhile, has the continuity of a squad which knows exactly what it took to become champions.
That was perhaps why the manager was so pleased with the manner of the performance rather than simply the result.
“I think it's down to the preparation that we've done in pre-season, to the decisions that the boys have taken after the World Cup, to continue to get prepared, to come early because they wanted to be part of this and they really wanted to win the competition because it's something that we earned last year.”
Calafiori, who opened the scoring, saw it in similarly simple terms.
“It was such an important game and an important test for us,” he said. “It was to show our mentality after last season.”
And after being handed the perfect start by Lewis-Skelly, he was happy to spread the credit.
“The pass was unbelievable. Myles gave me the perfect ball. It's 70% him and 30% me.”
For Arsenal, the Community Shield may not count in the Premier League table, but the champions could hardly have wished for a more emphatic opening statement.
“It’s close to perfection this kind of performance,” Calafiori concluded.
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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