Arsenal opened their season with a trophy, beating Manchester City 3-0 in the Community Shield at Cardiff's Principality Stadium on Sunday. It was a result that told City, and everyone else, exactly where the champions' heads are at going into the new campaign.
Man City never really got started. Arsenal scored after just 24 seconds, with Calafiori registering the fastest goal in Community Shield history when Myles Lewis-Skelly picked out Riccardo Calafiori with a pass that carved straight through City's back line. Calafiori finished from twelve yards, and from there Arsenal never looked like relinquishing control.
The second goal followed midway through the first half. Martin Odegaard's cross found Christos Tzolis at the back post, who headed the ball back across for Kai Havertz to nod in past Ruben Dias. Two goals down before the half-hour mark, City's defending had already raised questions that Enzo Maresca will need to answer quickly.
Arsenal's third came just three minutes after the restart. Tzolis played Odegaard through, and the Arsenal captain beat Gianluigi Donnarumma with a dummy before finishing from close range. By that point, City's afternoon had turned into damage limitation rather than a genuine contest.
Both of Arsenal's summer signings involved had strong outings. Bruno Guimaraes, who joined from Newcastle for a reported £75 million, looked assured in midfield. Tzolis, signed from Club Brugge for around £34 million, had a hand in two of the three goals in what was effectively his first big test in an Arsenal shirt.
City's new arrivals had a rougher time of it. Elliot Anderson, a £116 million signing from Nottingham Forest, struggled to get a foothold in the game, while Erling Haaland missed two clear first-half chances and had little impact after the break.
Sunday marked Maresca's first match in charge of City since replacing Pep Guardiola, who left after a decade that brought considerable success but ended with City eight points behind Arsenal last season.
The Community Shield doesn't carry major weight beyond bragging rights, and history suggests it's rarely a reliable predictor of the league title , only City themselves, back in 2019, have won both in the same season over the past 15 years. Even so, Arsenal will take real confidence from how well their new players integrated as they prepare to open their title defence at home to newly promoted Coventry City on 21 August.
City, meanwhile, face a quick turnaround before hosting Bournemouth in their Premier League opener on 23 August. On this evidence, Maresca has a fair amount of work ahead of him before his side look ready to compete at the level City fans have grown used to.
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