Not Martinelli or Saka! I Fear – Pep Guardiola reveals the Arsenal new signing that is only afraid of against Tomorrow’s Community Shield clash
Fifty-seven days since City were finally crowned champions of Europe for the first time on that balmy Istanbul night, Pep Guardiola and his band of conquerors will head into battle again with the Community Shield at Wembley against Arsenal. And if last season seemed difficult, this one looks even tougher.
It is always harder when you win things. Everyone expects more of you, and everyone is more determined to beat you; the scalp of the best team in the country and the continent is always the most satisfying.
The league has arguably never been tougher either. Arsenal have backed Mikel Arteta in the transfer market to the tune of around £200m and counting, allowing him to make key upgrades that they hope will mean last year’s Premier League bridesmaids will be blushing come next May.
Declan Rice is a player that Guardiola really liked, and whatever the truth of the transfer tussle between the clubs nobody would deny that he looks an excellent addition to a Gunners squad already stacked with talent. As the manager indicated on Friday, their signings are not just to improve the squad but the starting XI.
Liverpool have made two midfield signings in Alexis Mac Allister and Dominik Szoboszlai that look the sort of deals that parachuted them to the top of English football as they plot their return, while there is fresh hope in West and North London with new managers after the carnage that engulfed their seasons. And Erik Ten Hag will be able to test his claim made after the FA Cup Final that United really weren’t far off the Treble winners.
On top of the usual suspects, it would be daft to write off the new threats to the top four. Brighton and Brentford were two of the most difficult opponents to play all season, and Aston Villa’s renaissance under Unai Emery was remarkable.
Whether it is a top four or a top six or a top ten, there are minefields aplenty for City before you factor in the threat of the promoted teams – hello Vincent Kompany’s Burnley on the opening night of the Premier League – and the hellish schedule that will await the Blues. To make matters more difficult, the board have raised their standards of what is expected.
Khaldoon Al Mubarak was clear in his end-of-season interview that there are three more trophies to be won before the end of 2023, and you can bet a magpie for silver and history like Guardiola is intent on making it six for the calendar year. That means being sharper for the Community Shield than they have recently been, having lost the last two.
City generally treat the match as an exercise in getting fit for other competitions, given they consciously do not overload their players when they return from their summer breaks in order to make sure they are still firing at the business end of the campaign. It looks like a masterplan when the team wins a Treble, although it can mean a slower start.
City’s performance team actually analysed all of the squad at the beginning of last season to find out if they can improve, and found that while their form in the second half of the campaign is generally better they still hold up against rivals in the early stages. Nevertheless, they have had to come from a fair way back in three of their five titles and the Community Shield against Arsenal and Super Cup against Sevilla both come in August.
The Club World Cup in Saudi Arabia is not until December, yet while that is an exciting opportunity to claim a trophy they have never won before and declare themselves world champions, it also complicates their plans for other competitions. Games will have to be rearranged and squashed into the second half of the campaign, and the players will have to quickly acclimatise in and out of the desert heat as well as cope with the extra workload.
Despite the extra games, there has been no change of plan to give Guardiola a larger squad than usual. The manager likes working with a small group who are fully committed to his instructions, and the transfer window has not seen a mass influx to significantly outweigh the departures.
Of those gone, it will be sad for Blues at Wembley to see the team without Ilkay Gundogan, the man who lifted three trophies and scored those brilliant goals in the FA Cup final against United to ensure he goes down in the heart and history of the club. Nobody could begrudge him his move to Barcelona after a perfect ending to his time in Manchester, yet he will take some replacing.
