It was the traditional curtain-raiser of the new season in English football, as Pep Guardiola’s side and Mikel Arteta’s team went head to head at Wembley Stadium.
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A dramatic ending to the Community Shield saw Manchester City losing the action-packed game to Arsenal in a lopsided penalty shootout. It was the traditional curtain-raiser of the new season in English football, as Pep Guardiola’s side and Mikel Arteta’s team went head to head at Wembley Stadium. Both teams enjoyed periods of dominance on the pitch and created the chances to score but their respective goalkeepers did well to keep the scoreline goalless.
It took a beautiful curling strike from young talent Cole Palmer to open the scoring for Manchester City deep into second half. However, Man City were not able to hold on to the lead, as a deflected strike from Arsenal’s Leandro Trossard in the stoppage time levelled the score. In a one-sided penalty shootout, the Gunners won 4-1 to lift the Community Shield. After the match, Guardiola was happy with Stefan Ortega Moreno’s saves in the first half but he was more pleased with City’s second half display.
“My first words, congratulations to Arsenal for winning the Community Shield trophy. We were close. We were good for 25-30 minutes, in the last 15 or 20 minutes of the first half they were better. They had two chances and Stefan did well. But second half we were much, much better. We played a really good second half. Our energy from the new players especially players in one- on-one situations, players like Phil, Kevin and Cole. We were close but at the end, we couldn’t do it and their penalty takers were better than us,” he was quoted as saying by the club’s website after the match.
Manchester City’s season concluded on June 10 following their impressive victory over Inter Milan to complete a historic treble. Besides, their players were also involved in international duty that month, meaning they had slightly lesser period of break than other teams. Despite the short break, Guardiola was happy with the level shown by Man City on Sunday. “The team behaved unbelievably. In the second half, the last minutes, attacking players were there and they pushed a lot and it’s normal,” he explained.
He added: “We are not the NBA that when you finish you have three months off to recover. Not here, especially here. In good seasons or bad seasons it didn’t happen. You have to adapt and that’s why I’m surprised how good we behaved. We faced an extraordinary team. It happened last season and it happened again. We were close and we are a little bit disappointed for the final result but it’s football. If you can’t win you can bring minutes to the players and I’m thinking of Friday, when we are going to Burnley to play.”
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