Community Shield: Arsenal fire first shot of season with win over City
Mikel Arteta hailed his bench yesterday after a 101st-minute Leandro Trossard equaliser helped Arsenal draw 1-1 with Manchester City before a successful Fabio Vieira shootout penalty earned the Gunners the Community Shield at Wembley.
Arsenal dominated the opening 40 but couldn’t convert either of their shots on target – a duo of attempts from new signing Kai Havertz were saved by City goalkeeper Stefan Ortega.
The deadlock was broken, though, in the 77th minute when City’s Cole Palmer followed up a sighter a couple of minutes earlier with a stunning strike from just inside the box.
Arsenal find a way
But when it looked as though City were on course to win the first domestic trophy of the season, Trossard found the net through a Manuel Akanji deflection in the 11th minute of injury time – the Football Association and Premier League are looking to add more time on to matches to stamp out decent and time-wasting.
Martin Odegaard put Arsenal ahead on penalties – the Community Shield does not have extra-time – before Kevin De Bruyne missed City’s first.
Trossard and Bernardo Silva exchanged successful shots before Bukayo Saka made it 3-1 to the Gunners.
Rodri missed City’s second of the shootout before Fabio Vieira hit the winner.
Best team in the world
“We are so happy to win a trophy at Wembley against the best team in the world. It was a really tough match,” Arsenal manager Arteta said.
“In the second half we made a big mistake in the high press to allow them to switch play and when you give them that they put the ball in the top corner and you’re 1-0 down.
“And in that moment we had to be clever, not give up and stay in the game. We knew how important changes were going to be and they were because Leo [Trossard] scored the goal and Fabio [Vieira] scored the winner.
“You play against a team that dominated the moments so well and know how to run the clock down but we believed, made changes, changed formation and that caused them some problems.”
Only one club – Manchester City in 2018 – have won the Community Shield and gone on to win the Premier League but Arsenal will see the result as a positive start to their campaign, which truly gets underway on Saturday against Nottingham Forest.
Manchester City are still in the mix to win six trophies this season – the quadruple, plus the European Super Cup and Club World Cup – and begin their campaign on Friday away to former player Vincent Kompany’s Burnley.