Manchester City beat Chelsea 2-0 in the Community Shield at Wembley Stadium today, ending the four year streak of wins by the current FA Cup holders. The traditional curtain raiser on the new Premier League season is a trophy match, but many people still regard it as a glorified friendly.
Whether you think the Community Shield is important, or not important, or somewhere in between, we have plenty of news topics emerging from this clash. Let’s break them all down.
Both goals were scored by Sergio Aguero, and the brace marked his 200th and 201st goals with the club. The first goal was set up by 18-year-old Phil Foden, who made a very rare start today. Foden was 11 years old when Aguero scored his first goal with the club.
City manager Pep Guardiola was asked if Foden, who made five league appearances last season, is ready to be a significant contributor in the Premier League this season.
“Yep. He was last season,” the Spaniard responded.
“He’s one year more mature, he trained all the season with us, so he fought with all our players.”
“That’s why it’s so good to have another player with his talent and he’s a Manchester City fan, he’s Mancunian, so that’s why, for us, he’s so good.”
Obviously, a lot of very exciting times are ahead for the youngster.
-One of the major storylines in this one is Chelsea midfielder Jorginho, who snubbed Manchester City by bolting on his potential move to the league champions, and instead decided to join Chelsea (their only signing this summer). Jorginho started and played all 90 minutes for the Blues, but as his new side lost to what should/could have been his new side, you knew that jokes of this sort were coming on social media:
? It was at this moment he knew… he f*cked up #CommunityShield #MCFC pic.twitter.com/1T2iS1TAnK
— The Sportsman (@TheSportsman) August 5, 2018
Pretty funny, and quite clever. The same account also made a joke about attendance, which if you’re a City fan, is starting to get very old now.
Actually, these jokes have been old for quite awhile already.
? Why are all the City fans wearing red today?
(?@PBSportsWriter)#CommunityShield pic.twitter.com/d6yqaqYtT4
— The Sportsman (@TheSportsman) August 5, 2018
Clearly, we can’t read too much into this result, as it was a glorified friendly, but the Blues were certainly very depleted for this time of year. Plus they’re adjusting to a new manager. While many of Chelsea’s World Cup players have returned to action, the west London side was still without six who reached the semifinals of the tournament:
France’s N’Golo Kante and Olivier Giroud, Belgium’s Thibaut Courtois and Eden Hazard, and England’s Gary Cahill and Ruben Loftus-Cheek.
New Chelsea boss Maurizio Sarri was asked how long it is going to take to implement his system on his new team, and the response was classic.
“I don’t know how long it will take,” the Italian said.
“I arrived three weeks ago, and I haven’t seen six players yet. It depends on me, it depends on the players. But I don’t know.”
“We have the idea to press but sometimes we press in the right way and sometimes not.We want to be in control of the match but today we were not in control. It’s a long way. We have to work. It’s not very easy.
“In the next week we have a friendly match and I prefer to be on the pitch with the players only for training.”
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, is currently a regular contributor to SB Nation, WGN CLTV and Chicago Now.
Follow him on Twitter, Instagram, Sound Cloud and YouTube. The content of his cat’s Instagram account is unquestionably superior to any and all of his.