Arsenal won the Community Shield by beating Manchester City 4-1 on penalties after a 1-1 draw on Sunday. This ended Manchester City’s run of winning trophies.
Cole Palmer’s beautiful curler put City ahead late in the second half at Wembley, but Leandro Trossard’s heavily deflected equalizer 11 minutes into stoppage time sent Mikel Arteta’s team to a shootout.
City’s first penalty kick, taken by Kevin De Bruyne, hit the bar, and Rodri’s shot was saved by Aaron Ramsdale. Fabio Vieira scored the winning kick in the yearly season-opener for the Premier League, which was won by City.
Arsenal’s celebrations were much more wild than you would usually see in a “glamour friendly,” but their joy showed how painful the last few months have been since they missed a great chance to win their first championship since 2004.
“It feels wonderful. “Winning a trophy at Wembley against the best team in the world is about as good as it gets,” said Arteta.
“We’re here to help this club win trophies. It’s great to see so many happy and proud people.”
The boss of City, Pep Guardiola, added, “We are sad. We’d be thrilled to win today. Manchester City is a good team, but they do lose sometimes.
“We couldn’t do it in the end because their penalty takers were better than ours.”
City made history last season when it became only the second English club to win the Premier League, the Champions League, and the FA Cup all in the same year.
Their fifth Premier League title in six years came at the cost of Arsenal, who lost an eight-point lead at the beginning of April and ended up five points behind the winners.
Declan Rice, Kai Havertz, and Jurrien Timber, who signed for £160 million, showed that Arsenal had something to prove to City. They went into tackles with the kind of speed that usually comes with a title final.
While Arteta and his players ran around the field and enjoyed the loud cheers of their fans, they might want to remember that the winner of the Community Shield has only won the Premier League title once since 2011.
Arsenal led the table for 248 days last season, but they still didn’t win the title. This led Arteta to say that they will need a “unheard of” number of points to beat the winners, who are trying to win a fourth straight title for the first time in history.
Put together Rice
After his £105 million move from West Ham, England defender Declan Rice played a calm game that gave Arteta hope.
Timber, another new player, played well at left back. Havertz, on the other hand, wasted Arsenal’s two best chances to take the lead, which was typical of him.
Havertz will be expected to lead the attack for Arsenal while Gabriel Jesus heals from knee surgery. This was not the best way for the inconsistent German to start with his new team.
Mateo Kovacic’s City start was full of energy after he moved from Chelsea, but fellow Croatian Josko Gvardiol couldn’t play because he had just moved from Leipzig on Saturday.
Palmer took over for Erling Haaland in the second half, and the young player scored in the 77th minute.
City broke quickly, and when Kieran Tierney carelessly lost the ball, De Bruyne’s header found Palmer, who curled a beautiful shot from the edge of the box into the far corner.
But because of the new rules about not wasting time, there was a lot of dead time, and 11 minutes into the extra time, Arsenal scored to tie the game.
It was a very lucky goal, as Trossard came in from the right and shot straight at Manuel Akanji, but the ball went off the City defender and past Stefan Ortega, who was caught off guard.
Arteta celebrated as if Arsenal had won the league, and the Spaniard let his feelings show again when Vieira scored the game-winning penalty to set off a title race that had been building up.