The first match of English top-flight football will be played between Manchester City and Arsenal in a Community Shield final at Wembley Stadium on Sunday.
The Community Shield final will see treble winners taking on an energetic young squad who came very close to clinching the Premier League (PL) last season but lost it against the former’s experience.
With 16 Community Shield wins, the Gunners are no strangers to the fixture, while City managed to win it only six times. For some, this match may be nothing more than a friendly but it is going to give everyone a glimpse of what they are about to witness in the upcoming PL season.
It may not come as a surprise if Pep Guardiola, City’s head coach, treats this match very normally because in the past he did not have much trouble beating the Gunners as their last meeting at the Etihad Stadium ended in a 4-1 victory for the former.
But, Mikel Arteta’s men will play this much as a final. They lost the PL last season to City despite staying at the top of the table for about 248 days, the longest a team spent at the top without winning the title. Not only that, they had an eight-point lead over Pep’s men which they ended up bottling just within three weeks between April and May.
And now, with the edition of a UEFA Conference League winner Declan Rice and Kai Havertz in the squad, we may witness a different Arsenal this time.
On the other hand, Man City are doing what they do best, remaining ruthless and throwing aside every opponent that comes their way. That is exactly how they won the historic treble last season.
What makes this City side so scary is the combination of physicality, technicality, chemistry, experience and possession-based football. And with the edition of Mateo Kovacic and Jasko Gvardiol, one can only expect them to get more and more dangerous and it is going to be very interesting to see who stops this City team to win another UEFA Champions League title.
Possible starting XI’s
Manchester City (3-2-4-1): Ederson; Nathan Ake, Ruben Dias, Manuel Akanji; Rodri, John Stones; Jack Grealish, Mateo Kovacic, Kevin de Bruyne, Bernardo Silva; Erling Haaland.
Arsenal (4-3-3): Aaron Ramsdale; Oleksandr Zinchenko, Gabriel, William Saliba, Jurrien Timber; Declan Rice, Thomas Partey, Martin Odegaard; Gabriel Martinelli, Eddie Nketiah, Bukayo Saka.
Wasay Qayyum Wasay Qayyum is a sports journalist at Geo Super.