Wembley Stadium hosts the traditional Premier League curtain-raiser on Sunday afternoon, as 2022/23 Premier League runners-up Arsenal take on treble winners Manchester City for the Community Shield.
The Citizens come into this match after a 2-1 defeat to Atletico Madrid in their most recent friendly. At the same time, the Gunners’ last encounter was a win over Monaco in the Emirates Cup final.
While Arsenal spent a record 248 days at the top of the Premier League and failed to win it, their league campaign exceeded all expectations placed before them at the start of the season. They could still be rewarded for their efforts last season with a slice of silverware on Sunday.
Arsenal have had quite an impressive preseason tour of the USA as they beat all their opponents (MSL All stars and Barcelona) except Manchester United.
Manchester City’s was no different. They also triumphed against Yokohama F. Marinos and Bayern Munich in Japan but fell against Atletico Madrid.
Arsenal have won each of their last four Community Shield matches with the last one coming against Liverpool in 2020.
However, they have lost to Manchester City eight matches in a row in all competitions since beating them in the 2019/20 FA Cup semi-finals.
Team news
Arsenal’s number nine and former Man City target man Gabriel Jesus suffered a knee injury early this week. He will miss this encounter and will also miss the first few weeks of the season.
Other absentees for Arsenal are Oleksandr Zinchenko (calf), Mohamed Elneny (knee), Reiss Nelson (toe) and Albert Sambi Lokonga (muscle).
For Manchester City, Kevin De Bruyne has yet to fully recover from the hamstring tear he sustained during the Champions League final against Juventus. It is also highly unlikely that new signing Josko Gvardiol will get his debut in this match.
