August – The Community Shield is Almost Upon Us (Already!)
August the 6th 2023 will be the confirmed date of the traditional curtain raiser for the upcoming season, the much coveted Community Shield at Wembley Stadium.
This usually pits the winners of the Premier League against the FA Cup winners of the previous season, both fabulous competitions covered extensively over at Dailysports.net and here of course.
However, as Man City won the treble, it’s the league runners-up who face City, and that happens to be us!
While many view it as a glorified friendly, it’s usually a great gauge of how things are going to go during the upcoming season, and how all the Arsenal summer signings are going to fit into Mikel Arteta’s grand plan.
With a very busy summer ahead, the game is sure to be hotly contested between the two best teams in the country at the moment and with an array of new signings on both sides, it will definitely be a spectacle to behold.
With the acquisition of Kai Havertz from Chelsea already in the bag, this week should also see the arrival of our biggest-ever signing in Declan Rice from West Ham, along with Jurrien Timber from Ajax to name but two.
Exciting, but in a different way should also be the contract extensions of William Saliba, and Reiss Nelson, when added to the extensions of Saka, Martinelli and Ramsdale all make for a very positive summer already for Arteta and Edu.
The game promises to be a heated affair given our recent tussles in the league, and City also knocked us out of the FA Cup last season with a 1-0 victory at home despite us being on top for much of the game. The unstoppable City juggernaut did, however, brutalise us in the two league encounters which actually proved to be the difference between City winning the league and our runners-up spot, again despite us being on top for the majority of the season.
The game has already been moved from its original kick-off time of 530pm back to 4pm on the Sunday due to pressure from some Man City supporters groups, but there is even further pressure to push it back once more to the more standard kick-off time of 3pm.
Whatever happens on the 6th of August in the game is always a good indicator of what is to come and it also means football is finally back!