Plus: Where the Community Shield will be played and who won the match last year
Arsenal are determined to fight for all trophies in the new season as the Premier League runners-up begin their 2023-24 campaign against Treble winners Manchester City in the Community Shield.
Arsenal’s title challenge crumbled last season in the face of a relentless City, who have won three successive top-flight titles before winning their maiden Champions League crown in June.
Arsenal enjoyed an eight-point lead over City until mid-March but lost it at the end of April and will now look to seek revenge in today’s traditional curtain-raiser to the Premier League season at Wembley.
“Very excited to play a final to win a trophy, we are playing against the team to beat,” Mikel Arteta, the Arsenal manager, said.
“This is what we want [a new era for Arsenal], fighting for every trophy. We have to prove that. What we did last year was not enough to win the big trophy, and we have to be better.”
Manchester City will face Arsenal. Ordinarily, the Community Shield is played between the winner of the Premier League and the winner of the FA Cup. Given that City won both those competitions last season, their opponents are instead the team who finished second in the Premier League: Arsenal.
The match will be played today (Sunday, August 6, 2023) at 4pm.
The match returns to Wembley Stadium this year, having been hosted at Leicester City’s King Power Stadium in 2022 due to the Women’s Euros.
ITV have the broadcast rights to the Community Shield and show the game on ITV1. Those without access to a TV may also stream the action live via ITV’s on-demand streaming service, ITVX
The two clubs were responsible for ticket sales for the match but the fixture has now sold out.
Manchester City face a daunting task this season: how do you improve on what was near enough football perfection? Jason Burt writes that Guardiola has been typically demanding during pre-season, and wants City to become the first team in English football history to win four league titles in a row.
City have lost valuable players such as Ilkay Gundogan and Riyad Mahrez though, with doubts remaining over the future of Kyle Walker and Bernardo Silva. Sam Dean writes that Arsenal may actually have the stronger squad, even if City’s starting XI still has more refined quality.
Arteta certainly has more options to choose from and Arsenal’s midfield could look very different following the signings of Declan Rice and Kai Havertz. Daniel Zeqiri looks at how Arsenal could line up, in a summer that has also seen Liverpool and Manchester United rebuild their midfields.
Last year’s fixture was won by Liverpool, who beat Manchester City 3-1 at the King Power Stadium.
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