Уэльст болсон Комьюнити Шилд тэмцээний хүрээнд Арсенал Манчестер Ситиг 3:0-ийн харьцаатай буулган авч, шинэ улирлын өмнөх бэлтгэл сургуулилт болон сэтгэл зүйн хувьд өндөр түвшинд байгаагаа харууллаа.
Тоглолтын эхний 24 дэх секундэд Майлз Льюис-Скеллигийн дамжуулалтаар Арсенал гоол оруулж тооны харьцааг нээсэн бол Мартин Эдегор хоёр дахь гоолын эхлэлийг тавьж, гурав дахь гоолыг өөрөө оруулснаар ялалтад гол үүрэг гүйцэтгэлээ. Шинээр ирсэн тоглогч Кристос Тзолис мөн хоёр оновчтой дамжуулалт өгч, тоглолтын туршид Арсенал талбайн бүх хэсэгт илүүрхэж байв.
Манчестер Ситигийн бүрэлдэхүүнд Родри, Бернарду Силва нар дутагдаж байсан нь тэдний тоглолтод сөргөөр нөлөөлсөн бол Арсенал Бруно Гимараешийг эгнээндээ нэгтгэж, хагас хамгаалалтын шугамаа улам хүчирхэгжүүлжээ. Дасгалжуулагч Микель Артета багийнхаа тоглогчдын ялалтын төлөөх өлсгөлөн, хүсэл тэмүүллийг онцлоод, өнгөрсөн улирлын амжилтыг давтахын тулд онцгой хичээл зүтгэл шаардлагатай байгааг тэмдэглэв.
Тус баг одоогоор Виллиам Салибагийн бэртэлтэй холбоотойгоор төвийн хамгаалагч болон довтолгооны шугамаа зузаатгах шаардлагатай байгаа ч Премьер лигийн шинэ улирлын гол өрсөлдөгч хэвээр үлдэхээр байна. Дасгалжуулагч Микель Артета нь лигийн дээд дивизионы хамгийн удаан хугацаанд ажиллаж буй дасгалжуулагчийн хувьд багийнхаа тогтолцоог бүрэн төлөвшүүлж чадсан нь тоглолтын явцаас тодорхой харагдлаа.
Дэлгэрэнгүйг эх сурвалжаас харах
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Can anyone stop Arsenal in the Premier League?
It should be too soon to be asking a question like that. We’ve got a whole season ahead of us, 380 Premier League matches in total, starting on Friday under the lights at the Emirates Stadium and finishing in May next year. That’s a lot of football to be played.
It’s also worth remembering that only three managers — Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United, Jose Mourinho at Chelsea, and Pep Guardiola at Manchester City — have won Premier League titles back-to-back across the last 34 years.
Rivals, typically, are re-energised, motivated and determined to put right what went wrong the season before. As for the reigning champions, aside from the fact that everyone wants to beat them, the biggest worry is whether it means as much to the players, or even the manager, the following season. To put it another way, is the hunger still there?
Arsenal’s comprehensive 3-0 victory over Manchester City in the Community Shield in Wales on Sunday afternoon provided some possible answers in that respect, and not just because of the goals they scored and the emphatic scoreline.
The clues were there in the off-the-ball actions of the Arsenal players too, in their body language and in the way that every duel seemed to mean so much to them, even in a fixture that still prompts debate among many football fans as to whether winning it actually qualifies as a trophy.
Mikel Arteta and his players looked sharp and motivated in Sunday’s game with Manchester City (Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)
Mikel Arteta smiled afterwards when a reporter highlighted to him examples of three Arsenal players (Gabriel, the defender’s international team-mate and new-signing Bruno Guimaraes, and Ben White) revelling in making a challenge or a block on an opponent.
“When you put your soul and your heart into a reaction, that’s what happens,” the Arsenal manager said.
Indeed, the underlying message felt clear at the Principality Stadium: Arsenal supporters might still be basking in the glow of their first league title in 22 years, but Arteta and his players are as driven and ambitious as ever, and that means being hell-bent on holding onto the trophy that the club took so long to reclaim.
“Because you want to go through it again,” Arteta explained. “When the desire comes, I want to live that moment again, I want to live all the moments, even bigger than them. We know what it’s going to take, we know the difficulty of the task, that’s why we’ve never done it at this football club (in the Premier League era). So we know that it’s going to demand something special and we are ready for it.”
But are the rest of the Premier League clubs ready? Can a legitimate title challenger emerge from the usual suspects when there has been so much change and churn this summer? City, Liverpool and Chelsea all have new managers, while Michael Carrick is about to embark on his first full season in charge of Manchester United.
The contrast with Arsenal, where Arteta is now the longest-serving manager in English football’s top four divisions, is stark.
Against City, Arsenal looked what they are: a well-oiled machine where all the individual roles are clearly defined, where the movement patterns are familiar (Riccardo Calafiori making runs on the inside on the left, White overlapping on the outside on the right as soon as the wide attacker shifts infield; the two full-backs nearly combined for a goal at one stage), and where a way of consistently winning matches has long been established. And no, that didn’t involve a set-piece goal against City, in case you were wondering.
Myles Lewis-Skelly assisted a goal inside the first 30 seconds of Sunday’s game (Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)
It’s true that the Community Shield is rarely a reliable yardstick for what’s to come — only eight of its 34 winners before Sunday’s game have gone on to claim the Premier League title. This year’s curtain-raiser featured a number of players who were making their first club appearance of any description this summer because of the World Cup. It’s a safe bet that Erling Haaland, who was one of those players, won’t be substituted again after 53 minutes this season unless he’s injured.
Equally, some potentially broader issues were impossible to ignore in Cardiff, not least how different Manchester City’s midfield looks without the effervescent Bernardo Silva and the influence of Rodri. Different is one way of putting it; weaker and lacking leadership is another. It’s unthinkable that City allow Rodri to leave this summer without signing a replacement, whether that’s Enzo Fernandez from Chelsea, or someone else.
As for Arsenal, they’ve already strengthened in that department, bringing in Guimaraes from Newcastle for £75million and prompting Mikel Merino to suggest a few days ago that Arsenal now have the best midfield in football. Arteta had a grin on his face when that line was put to him.
How does Bruno Guimaraes fit in at Arsenal?
JJ Bull
As comfortable as Guimaraes already looks in an Arsenal shirt — showing a trademark mix of brains and brawn against City — it was the two players alongside him who played pivotal roles in the goals: Myles Lewis-Skelly, with a lovely disguised pass for the opener after only 24 seconds, and the excellent Martin Odegaard, who had a hand in the second and elegantly scored the third.
“Can we play you every week?” sang the Arsenal supporters after the Norwegian made a fool out of Gianluigi Donnarumma, sitting the City goalkeeper on his backside with a beautiful dummy before slotting into an empty net.
“Are you Tottenham in disguise?” followed moments later.
Phil Foden played in a City midfield shorn of Rodri and Bernardo Silva (Glyn Kirk/AFP via Getty Images)
It was that sort of day for Arsenal, whose fans were greeting passes with “oles” before the hour mark, taunting City’s new head coach Enzo Maresca about his short-term job prospects, and enjoying the sight of Christos Tzolis, their £34m signing from Club Brugge, mark his competitive debut with two assists. Short of asking the French referee Clement Turpin to play on the left wing, it’s hard to imagine Arsenal could have found a more perfect Leandro Trossard replacement than Tzolis.
All the while, David Raya continued to serve up the occasional reminder with his feet (drilled 40-yard passes into Tzolis) and hands (effortlessly claiming crosses and making an outstanding save to keep out Antoine Semenyo’s late effort) as to why he’s the best goalkeeper in the Premier League.
As the game got away from City (some would argue that was the case inside the first minute) and Arteta started to make widespread changes, there was a reminder of Arsenal’s strength in depth, too.
Bukayo Saka, Declan Rice, Martin Zubimendi, Piero Hincapie, Viktor Gyokeres and Eberechi Eze all came off the bench. Merino, a World Cup winner, was an unused substitute, along with the gifted teenager Max Dowman. As for Gabriel Martinelli, Ethan Nwaneri and Gabriel Jesus, they didn’t make the cut.
Despite all of that, there is still work for Arsenal to do in this transfer window, both in defence — Cristhian Mosquera performed well alongside Gabriel, but Arteta will want a more established centre-back to step into the shoes of the injured William Saliba — and in the forward positions, where an A-list attacker has eluded them so far this summer and will almost certainly be required in order for the club to take the next step in the Champions League.
In terms of the Premier League, though, it’s hard to escape the feeling that Arsenal, once again, will be the team for everyone to beat.
