Arsenal 1 Chelsea 1 [Arsenal win 4-1 on penalties]
Football is back and Arsenal won the new season's first silverware with a penalty shoot-out win over Chelsea in the Community Shield at Wembley.
After Victor Moses had put the Premier League champions ahead on 46 minutes, the Gunners equalised eight minutes from time when debutant Sead Kolasinac headed home Granit Xhaka's free-kick, a set-piece awarded for a red-card foul from Pedro on Mohamed Elneny. That took the tie into penalties and for English football fans the novel experience of an ABBA shootout.
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Designed to eradicate the perceived advantage to the team going first in the penalty shoot, the system is similar to a tennis tie-break with team A taking the first spot kick, followed by two from team B and then two more from team A, and so on. If the new format was a little confusing for the fans it also seemed to befuddle one or two players, particularly those in a blue shirt.
Not Gary Cahill, who slammed home the first penalty, nor Theo Walcott who cancelled out the effort from the Chelsea defender nor Nacho Monreal who made it 2-1 to the Gunners. But then Thibaut Courtois and Alvaro Morata both missed, allowing Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Oliver Giroud to seal the win for Arsenal in a repeat of May's FA Cup final triumph when the Gunners defeated the Blues 2-1.
"We finished far behind Chelsea last year and these two games should invite us to think we can fight with them," said Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger. "We have shown today and in the FA Cup final we can compete with them. We beat them last year in the first [Premier League] game but we lost the second one. So overall it should encourage us to be ambitious."
There were other reasons, too, to be cheerful for Wenger, with encouraging performances from new boys Alexandre Lacazette and goalscorer Sead Kolasinac. "The players we have brought in are quality and in a very difficult international market we've worked hard all summer," he commented. "I must say the competition is so difficult in market it's hard to find players who can strengthen and have the mental attitude. Talent is one thing but in the Premier League you have to find people who are ready to fight every week and that's not easy."
Nor is it likely to be easy for the Arsenal manager to win over some of the fans after the trauma of last season when thousands of Gooners called for the Frenchman to go after overseeing another disappointing season in which the club failed to qualify for the Champions League for the first time since 1996.
"It is a dream to make the fans happy, a difficult dream but we try hard," said Wenger. "I would like they stand behind the team as we might go through some very good periods and some not so good periods. We want to be united and together throughout the season."
As for Chelsea manager Antonio Conte, he took the defeat philosophically, knowing that the season proper for the Blues starts at the weekend with the visit to Stamford Bridge of Burnley. "We are working, we are trying to do our best," he said. "We had a tough pre-season, between the six days until we start the league it is important to be focused on the next game."
