Arsenal took the lead after just 23 seconds, doubled their advantage thanks to some static City defending in the 23rd minute, and then added a third three minutes into the second half.<\/p>\n
Former Arsenal defender Martin Keown told TNT Sports at the end of the game: “The gap was really quite stunning.<\/p>\n
“Arsenal really let the handbrake off, but Manchester City looked lifeless. Arsenal have made a real statement of intent. Their biggest problem is who does Arteta pick? Man City have a lot more problems.”<\/p>\n
Manchester City received “a bit of a schooling”, according to former Scotland striker Ally McCoist, who added: “I know it’s early days and but it is concerning for Manchester City.”<\/p>\n
The underlying numbers showed how Arsenal dominated. The Gunners created 2.19 expected goals (xG) compared to City’s 0.77 and, intriguingly for Arsenal, none of their xG came from set-pieces.<\/p>\n
That metric gauges how likely chances are to result in goals, taking into account a range of variables, and Arsenal finished with almost three times the xG total of City.<\/p>\n
This was Arsenal’s biggest victory to nil against Manchester City since August 2014 (also 3-0 in the Community Shield), while it was City’s heaviest defeat to nil against an English side since a 4-0 defeat in November 2024 against Tottenham.<\/p>\n
“We played some brilliant football. Great performance and a great way to start the season,” Arsenal captain Odegaard told TNT Sports.<\/p>\n
“We showed our level today. We’re showed we’re ready. We’re serious and we want to do it again.”<\/p>\n
Arsenal’s players and fans were happy to celebrate their second trophy in four months, but just how seriously should we view their performance in a relatively minor competition?<\/p>\n
Ten-time Community Shield winner Sir Alex Ferguson said in 2011 he had always thought of the match simply “as a stepping stone” to the season ahead.<\/p>\n
In fact, since the Premier League started in 1992-93, only eight of the 34 winners of the Charity Shield or Community Shield have gone on to win the league.<\/p>\n
Manchester City, in 2018-19, were the last team to do so – and before that it was Ferguson’s Manchester United in 2010-11.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Arsenal took the lead after just 23 seconds, doubled their advantage thanks to some static City defending in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":571068,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-571067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=571067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571067\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/571068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=571067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=571067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=571067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}