Arsenal lay down marker for upcoming season with impressive Community Shield display

Arsenal, the defending champions after an agonizing 22-year wait, were well-polished, well-managed, and just better overall as they ran out 3-0 winners in Sunday's match. Meanwhile, Man City looked a team very much in flux, with a new manager in charge who is trying to reshape the club after the most dominant decade-and-a-half in English football history.

The reality is that there were only seven points separating the sides in the league last season, and the Sky Blues still managed to win two domestic trophies. Yet that still prompted a major shift in the way the club approached the upcoming campaign, led by the decision by former boss Pep Guardiola to walk away from one of the most fruitful marriages in sport.

That leaves Enzo Maresca to try to fill the massive shoes Guardiola once wore, and while City will always boast an absurdly high talent level and near unlimited spending capacity as long as their current ownership is in place, what was clearly missing from Sunday's match was the cohesive, well-drilled outfit that left opponents trembling in the past. Instead, Arsenal were brutal in their efficiency, making City pay for the mistakes they made and showing the world what a side with a well-established game plan and a title-winning pedigree can do to even the most talented of clubs searching for a new identity.

It's a similar story with many of Arsenal's main challengers for the Premier League title. Liverpool and Chelsea each have brand new managers who have spent the off-season shaping their sides to fit their respective visions, Manchester United have only had four months under Michael Carrick, and even Tottenham are still getting used to life under Roberto De Zerbi after the Italian performed a miracle by parachuting in with a month left in last season and kept them from being relegated.

Only Aston Villa can rely on a similar kind of continuity that Arsenal will boast ahead of this season, but of course the Gunners are the only side that can count on continuity alongside actually having topped the mountain in the cutthroat English top flight.

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Yes, Sunday's Community Shield was just one match. And yes, Arsenal are the club with the most Community Shield wins this century, with relatively little to show for it in terms of league success over the past couple of decades.

However, the manner in which they picked apart their foes on Sunday, led by a pair of assists by newcomer Christos Tzolis, can only be viewed as a good sign for Gunners fans as they hope that last season's Premier League triumph was not a one-off.

Conversely, opponents would be well served by studying this match intensely, as they will not want to be made to look as ordinary and unprepared against Arsenal as Man City were in the Community Shield.

 

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