Community Shield preview: Liverpool vs Arsenal ; Manchester City vs Chelsea - Football news
The HinduThe new English football season is starting in the same month the last one finished. And it’s at the national stadium - still without spectators - where Arsenal’s players return only four weeks later to play Liverpool in the Community Shield, the traditional curtain-raiser of the season between the winners of the Premier League and FA Cup. “We have no choice.” Saying it is “not an ideal moment to play this final” is quite the understatement by Arteta, who reported Thursday that Arsenal has had two training sessions so far in what he called a “mini preseason.” For the Spanish coach, it is just another example of how his team - and the rest of the Premier League - are heading into the unknown in an upcoming season that’s being squeezed by a month because of the extension of last season following the coronavirus outbreak. So they really could have done with some extra weeks off to, as Arteta puts it, “put our minds away from football.” Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp said on Friday he ideally would have liked six weeks to prepare for the new season. “It’s another opportunity to win a trophy and we will go for it.” The Liverpool-Arsenal game will be preceded at Wembley by the Women’s Community Shield between Manchester City and Chelsea.