Arsenal dominated Manchester City en route to a comprehensive 3-0 victory in the Community Shield. The quintuple is on, folks. It’s the 18th time the Gunners have won the Community Shield, second-most of any club. The emphatic win is exactly the springboard you want into the Premier League season, which gets underway this Friday when newly-promoted Coventry City visit the Emirates.
The Gunners took the lead 25-seconds into the match (the earliest recorded goal in Community Shield history) and didn’t look back. Myles Lewis-Skelly brilliantly held off pressure in the middle, turned, and slipped a disguised pass up the seam to Riccardo Calafiori, who slid it past a helpless Gianliugi Donnarumma, who went down far too early, I’d add.
Kai Havertz extended the Arsenal lead in the 28th minute. The German’s slightly fluffed header eluded Donnarumma, who once again, didn’t cover himself in glory on the save attempt. The goal was set up by Christos Tzolis heading a Martin Ødegaard cross back across the face of goal.
Arsenal put the match out of reach three minutes into the second half. Ødegaard zipped through the middle to get on the end of a fizzed Tzolis cross, sat Donnarumma down rather impudently, and slid it into the open net. With the scoreline at 3-0, both teams and managers shut up shop and started rotating players.
Martin Ødegaard, Myles Lewis-Skelly, Christos Tzolis, and David Raya were all excellent. Raya made several magnificent saves with the match still in the balance and added at least one more late to preserve his clean sheet. The Arsenal skipper ran the show in the middle of the park, enabled by the technical quality of Bruno Guimaraes and Myles Lewis-Skelly around him.
I’ll say it right here, right now: if Martin Ødegaard is healthier and plays like he did today, Arsenal will repeat as Champions.
Myles Lewis-Skelly, once again, rose to the occasion. His composure on the ball, enabled by his confidence in his strength / body-positioning when under pressure, is remarkable for a player his age. There is no world in which Arsenal should be selling him. Christos Tzolis continued his excellent preseason. He’s not super flashy but he consistently does good and correct things with the ball, stitching the play together, and making attacks more dangerous.
There is likely still transfer business to be done — Gabriel Martinelli not being in the squad today raises eyebrows and I’d bet Ethan Nwaneri, also not in the squad, is heading out on loan — but if Arsenal can keep their attackers healthier, they’re likely to be even better than last year. A healthy Martin Ødegaard, who looks like he may have a bit of a chip on his shoulder and a point to prove this season, Kai Havertz, and even Bukayo Saka will all be Like New Signings. And you can expand that out to attacking threats, really. Riccardo Calafiori, as he showed today, is a transformative player in the Arsenal attack. His ability to unbalance defenses and create chaos with his movement through the inside left channel adds dynamism and unpredictability to the attack.
On the other side of things, Manchester City. Woof. The usual caveats about the match not really counting, it being preseason, them having plenty of talent and more money than God etc. apply, but they looked dreadful. £116M man Elliot Anderson was invisible. Donnarumma was poor on all three Arsenal goals. The defense ahead of him lacked structure and application. There really wasn’t anything positive to take away from the performance, which is tremendously positive for anybody who isn’t a Manchester City supporter. Enzo Maresca is on fraud watch. Long may it continue for 115 Charges FC.
Now it’s time for the real stuff. Arsenal’s defense of their Premier League title starts with the season-opener at home to Coventry City this week. Bring it on.