da bwin： To quote my Hip Hop homies Outkast, the Community Shield ‘aint no thang’. The winner of the glorified friendly is awarded with an oversized 50 pence piece, worth about 50 pence in footballing terms when compared to the silverware Arsenal and Chelsea will be competing for next season.
da fezbet： Indeed, Manchester United steamrolled Wigan Athletic 2-0 at Wembley to kick off the David Moyes era, but that proved to be the only trophy the Red Devil lifted and one of their few convincing performances during the Scot’s nightmare ten months at Old Trafford.
The Gunners thumped Man City 3-0 in last season’s affair, but eventually finished up one place and four points worse off than them. More important than winning the Community Shield is ensuring, either by route of the FA Cup or the Premier League title, that you’ll be partaking in it again next year.
So insinuations that Arsenal’s 1-0 victory over reigning champions Chelsea on Sunday has provided a snippet into the outcome of next season’s title race seem a little premature.
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The Gunners have been nothing short of phenomenal in pre-season, beating Singapore XI, Everton, Lyon, Wolfsburg and the Blues to produce an aggregate scoreline of 15-2; Chelsea, on the other hand, are still a little undercooked and waiting for their first pre-season win in regulated time.
In other words, the London rivals entered the Community Shield final at different stages of their preparation for the coming campaign – something Jose Mourinho was well aware of before kick-off. Just has his tracksuit attire played down the occasion of a Wembley cup final, the Portuguese was quick to verbally downplay notions that Sunday’s winner would take a ‘psychological advantage’ into next season.
Regardless, pre-season only truly prepares you for the first competitive fixture; there’s still another ten months to go until the end of May and standards will only escalate during that time period.
That being said, there are plenty of positives for Arsenal to take from their convincing performance over the title holders, even if they don’t necessarily reflect as negatives for Chelsea – the predominant one being Arsene Wenger’s first ever victory over Mourinho.
Indeed, Wenger’s capacity to beat Mourinho has become a bigger debate than Arsenal’s capacity to beat Chelsea since the Portuguese’s return to Stamford Bridge two summers ago. Before Sunday, Le Professeur’s record against The Special One was seven defeats, six draws and no wins, scoring just six compared to Mourinho’s 20, and in many ways it encapsulates how Arsenal have faded from genuine title contenders into also-rans over the last decade.
Mourinho arrived in the Premier League just weeks after ‘the Invincibles’ claimed the title undefeated, bagging his first victory over Wenger in December 2004, and the Gunners haven’t lifted the English crown since. It’s almost as if the new direction Mourinho took the Premier League in – epitomised best by his use of the 4-3-3 formation and the invention of the ‘Makelele role’ – left Wenger’s Arsenal behind. Only towards the end of last season have they truly looked like catching up.
So even in the relaxed, essentially non-competitive context of the Community Shield, the 1-0 win marks a monumental moment in Wenger’s recent managerial career – the first time he’s outfoxed an opponent whose had the better of him for eleven years. Perhaps due to that alone, Sunday’s affair felt a little different to your average Community Shield match; the prevailing afterthought being that anything is possible for Arsenal next season, having overcome such a monolithic mental barrier.
Of course, that doesn’t mean the Gunners now have a psychological edge over Chelsea. They certainly won’t attach as much importance as Arsenal to Sunday’s result and more than any other Premier League club, the Blues have a knack of producing the goods when stakes are at their highest. In addition to being at an earlier stage of the pre-season cycle, it could be the case that Mourinho and his men simply struggled to find motivation last weekend for a match with nothing but London bragging rites truly on the line.
Regardless, a win over reigning champions is a fantastic platform for Arsenal to begin their season from, in a welcome contrast to their recurring habit of dawdling out of the Premier League starting blocks – last year, they claimed just six wins from their first 15 league fixtures – and having their momentum stifled by involvement in the ever-gritty, uncomfortable and tedious Champions League play-off round.
If that form is carried into the league campaign, Arsenal seem certain to be within contention for the English crown come next May. But the first real test of their title credentials comes on the 19th of September; a rematch between Mourinho and Wenger; the Gunners and the Blues; this time with a crucial three points on the line.
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