By Walter Broeckx
Arsenal with a few absentees in this match and certainly Ramsey and Özil will be a big miss. But Wenger taking no chances with them and letting them rest for the season opener against Leicester next week. Also no Mustafi and Alexis yet. Both have only started training this week and again Wenger doesn’t want to take any chances.
This gave us this starting line up : Cech, Holding, Mertesacker, Monreal, Bellerin, Elneny, Xhaka, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Welbeck, Iwobi and Lacazette.
On the beach: Ospina, Kolasinac, Willock, Nelson, Maitland-Niles, Walcott and Giroud. So also lots of youngsters on the bench today.
Both teams starting rather open. Cech has to be alert and come out of his penalty area on a long ball and a cross from Bellerin finds Courtois before Welbeck can come on the end of it. Iwobi goes past his man on the left but his cross is just behind Lacazette who touches the ball with his arm behind his body. Then Xhaka finds Lacazette with a cross from the centre but he French striker has to lean to much backwards to put enough power on the header. Iwobi with a 1-2 with Elneny but the ball just slightly stuck under his foot and so has to go wide and Courtois can block for a corner that leads to nothing. Welbeck then stealing the ball from Azpilicueta who has to drag him down when Welbeck and Lacazette were looking to get away. A yellow card for the Chelsea player the result. Bellerin also goes in the book for a sliding challenge on Alonso. Both correct decisions from the ref.
Arsenal with a quick attack from Bellerin over Lacazette to Welbeck who gives it back to the French striker who curls the ball past Courtois…. but it bounces off the post to deny an Arsenal goal. Arsenal now really should have been in front by now. Arsenal then losing the ball close to their penalty area but Cech first on the ball to prevent any real danger. There was a clear foul on an Arsenal player but the ref this time didn’t give a good advantage. For which he apologises to the Arsenal players afterwards. Mertesaceker then goes down holding his head after a Chelsea cross when he gets caught by an elbow from Cahill. Bleeding like a pig as the expression goes in my country. A long lay off will follow to stitch the wound. No central defenders on the bench for Arsenal and Per has to come off.
Kolasinac would love to enter the field but play restarts before he can come on so we have to play with 10 man forcing Cech to stop a possible dangerous cross. Monreal moves to the middle and Kolasinac plays on the left of the back 3. Arsenal do look a bit shocked by losing their leader and captain and Cech has to react well to a shot from Pedro. Willian tries to win a penalty after a ball bounces in the Arsenal penalty area but the ref again with an excellent spot noticed that Willian tripped himself and for his diving effort he gets a yellow card. Holding with a wrong pass losing the ball but he blocks the follow up to make up for what could have been a costly error. Luiz with a dangerous back header to Courtois but he gets away with it. Cech with a bad kick but the ball bounces away from the Chelsea player. Arsenal go to the other end and Iwobi makes a nice turn inside the penalty area but his shot is half blocked and an easy pick for Courtois is the result. A good opening from Arsenal in which we created a few chances but then the match was more even between the two teams but no score in the first half so we go in the dressing room with a 0-0.
A bad start for the second half for Arenal as they cannot clear a corner properly. The ball bounces high in the air and Luiz heads it on and Moses comes from behind and can easily score. 0-1 after 47 minutes. Xhaka who tried to clear the ball but just shot it high was seemingly the only Arsenal player to win the high ball back. The next corner also causes some problems but Cech can stop the second effort from Chelsea. The reaction from Arsenal a bit later is a ball from Lacazette to Bellerin whose cross is half cleared to Elneny who tries a shot from distance but it goes wide. Two Chelsea player go head to head after an Arsenal corner and both Luiz and Cahill need treatment. But both can continue. Elneny then with a surprising shot-cross almost surprises Courtois but the keeper can claw it from under his crossbar.
A next attack stops with an offside from Lacazette when Elneny might have tried a shot instead of a pass. Lacazette almost at the end of another attack but Courtois first ont he ball. Giroud and Walcott enter the field for Lacazette and Iwobi after 66 minutes. Kolasinac showing his nickname the tank a few times. A cross from Walcott just can’t find Welbeck. And then a wonderful strike from Xhaka that would have gone in but Courtois makes an even wonderful save to push it out the goal.
Pedro gets a red card for a very bad kick on the achilles of Elneny. No chance of playing the ball there… The resulting free kick is floated in by Xhaka and finds Kolasinac who heads the ball over the line. GOAL! 1-1 after 82 minutes. No offside from the strong defender when the ball was played and very cool with the header in the bottom corner. Welbeck goes off in the 87th minutes shortly after looking to have pulled up a bit. Nelson comes on. Some players looking very tired, certainly those who have only since short started training. But Bellerin, who looked tired with a penetration but the shot from Walcott just hobbled towards Courtois.
5 minutes of extra time given. Chelsea win a free kick that is floated in and the header goes just wide but it was offside. Walcott escapes almost twice but each time a defender being able to just cut out the danger. The final whistle goes and we have a penalty shoot out to decide the winner of this years community shield.
Over the 90 minutes I thought we played excellent at times and had the best chances and dominated most of the time. We had twice as many shots on total so if you look at our absentees this surely was a good performance from the team out there. Now let us hope we can pull it over the line with the penalties. Given Cech his penalty savings record not really something we will be favourite with the bookmakers. Per Mertesacker on the field in civilian cloths with a big cut above his eye but smiling and wishing his players the best.
Cahill is the first to take for Chelsea and he scores. 0-1 for Chelsea. Cech going the wrong way.
Walcott for Arsenal and he also scores. 1-1. Courtois also going the wrong way.
Monreal next to take one and he also scores. 2-1 for Arsenal. The order is no longer one by one for each team now.
Courtois is the next one… and he misses. He fires high over. 2-1 for Arsenal after 2 penalties each.
Morata the 75M man next and he shoots wide…
The Ox is next and he also scores sending Courtois the wrong way. 3-1 for Arsenal
Giroud is next if he scores we win the Community shield… and he scores!!!!!!!!!
Arsenal win the Community Shield and makes it 6 trophies in their last 6 finals or games with some price at stake.
The CS now will be reduced to no more price but for me it counts as a good success to finish preseason.
What a shame it is not a trophy. It would have been the “first trophy of the season” if Chelsea had won.
If refs carry on penalising violent play like this some teams are going to end up with 8 players by the end.
Well, considering we were not playing with Ozil, Alexis and Koz (among others), got Per injured, we’ve sure got a team that is in fact 2 teams and that can compete.
And probably the competition in the team is making each player having to give his bet and even more. This is good for then team.
And defensively, we’ve finally got options.
If refereeing is half as good as this game…this looks like a promising season
COYG
Arsenal Twinned with Wembley.
I’m unashamedly knocking that sentiment from one of the other blog posts from this morning
It seems to fit.
COYG
Great result Gunners!! What a way to end the pre-season. Good display all round, and we can see the tough mentality shown in the shoot-out.
Now on to the real stuff. All the best for the new season and wishing to end this on a high note too!!
Thanks Walter, couldn’t watch due to other commitments. And good that we best the chavskis again where it matters, something to put a smile back on my face again after the gatlin robbery last night (abhor cheating in any way, flavour, shape or form?). And not to mention the egg on the plundits faces ?
We are more than a match for Chelsea if we have an impartial referee
So my 9yr old goes ‘daddy we’ll beat chelsea tomorrow…’ So i ask what he’s basing that on, and he says ‘we beat them in the league, then they beat us in the reverse. We then beat them in the FA cup final and they beat us in China, so tomorrow it’ll be our turn..’ Hope when we meet them in the league next we’ll break this ‘trend’ ?
WOO HOO , HOO ! Well done the boys . Our first non trophy of the season !
Just saw the highlights as I had missed the game due to other commitments .
Up the Gunners !
1st or 2nd choice team, doesn’t matter…all of them wet their shirts out there and did us proud. Well done YG 😉
Well done boys! And wow, Kolasinac is really impressive!
Glenn Hoddle said :”It’s more how you perform, where are you in your pre-season. Be it a competitive game, but Chelsea were the better side. They missed chance after chance.” Wich game is he talking about? 🙂
Also laughable that the pundits were trying to claim that the Chelsea player tripped over his own feet because of contact by Bellerin.
Chelsea had spells of being marginally on top, but Arsenal were noticeably the better side for the majority of the game. Eventual result was a fair reflection of what had gone before.
Hoddle talking garbage, as per the media script!
Alex Dieuzeide
I thought Hoddle said that but wasn’t sure, but you have confirmed that he did. What chances was he talking about because I cannot recall many. If he really thought that it’s worrying because he must be losing his sight.
As John L says, Hoddle talking garbage.
“Chelsea supporters are not, by and large, the most ideal of companions.
They lurk for the greater part in some dark den of their own….”
If you would like to read the rest, follow us on Facebook and see how it pans out.
A good game to watch. The lads moved the ball impressively, found space, and – above all – showed great composure and technique while under pressure.
Laughed out loud when Hoddle came out with Chelsea had ‘misssed chances.” Where? When?
Friday can’t come quick enough!
Only saw the last 30 minutes of the match and 2 things struck me.
1) We looked the better side.
2) The ref looked to be doing his job.
Both of these impressions where true for the first dozen or so of matches last season and then 2 things happened.
1) The media couldn’t abide what Arsenal where, in there opinion ‘getting away with’ and let the World and his dog (the refs) know about it.
2) There ‘dog’ heeded the warning and reverted to type in the blink of an eye.
I predict much the same thing will happen this season, should we have a similarly impressive start to the campaign.
Well done lads. Great start.
“The game may have mean little and told us barely anything about the season to come, but Arsenal have started the campaign in encouraging style by winning the Community Shield beating Chelsea on penalties after the game ended 1-1 in normal time” – Nick Miller, ESPN FC.
As it had severally been pointed out on this UA blog before and even today as well before this CS match between Arsenal and Chelsea played at Wembley today, a CS match which Arsenal won to lift the first of the quadruple domestic titles of this new season’s campaign that kicked off with this CS match.
But despite the Gunners success over the Blues this afternoon at Wembley, journalists like Nick Miller of the Espnfc still find a way to demeaning the win since it was Arsenal that won and not Chelsea. Had it been it was Chelsea that won, oh! A lot of praises and commendation would have been showered on Antonio Conte and his Chelsea team today by the journalists.
I enjoyed the match. More especially as Arsenal played well in it and won it. It’s a good omen for us because a good beginning could lead to a good season success for us title winning wise in all competions this season.
Interesting to see that Conte has some ‘envy’ of Wenger’s situation.
And Chelsea have spent twice as much as Arsenal so far….some journlaists even finding excuses to Conte for a difficult transfer season…
Interesting to read when the Kommentariat and the WOB keep beating their drum that Arsenal have no clue.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2017/08/05/chelseas-antonio-conte-hints-behind-scenes-tension-arsene-wenger/
Watched the highlights now, Hoddle must be going blind – Courtois was by far the busier keeper today, not to mention the Lacazette curler that came off the post. Even the match stats show that we had the better of Chelsea in every department, but people like hoddle will try and tell you otherwise as if we don’t have eyes.. any other result would have been unfair on us. Oh, seen a stat showing Xhaka made 98 passes with a 100% completion and 1 assist.. awesome??
If all our matches were refereed the way today’s was, then we are a good match for anyone and can see us in the thick of things right there at the end. But as Nitram says, this WILL change the minute we start to threaten. Should a ref be deemed to have been soft on any of our players you’ll hear about it 24/7 in the media, subliminally changing the refs’ attitude to our players. As Jambug would say, it’s the media that really hurts us.
A bright start which will do the confidence of the team no harm at all.
Hissing Sead Kolasinac was my man of the match. Not only did he get the equaliser but his work in the engine room reaped dividends throughout the game. 😉
Good win and all round team performance.
Also good refereeing by Robert Madley.
P.S Some fine insight by Mark Clattenburg on the decisions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7mMRXQC8eY
From Minute 5:30 to 8:00
Al
We can only hope against hope that the referees give us an even break. I think we all know they can do it. We have seen it, but sadly, far too rarely.
Alas, I agree with Jambug, the media just will not allow it to happen.
Chris
A quote from Conte from the article you linked:
“I consider Arsene Wenger one of the best coaches in the world. Arsenal are one of the best teams in the world.”
Isn’t funny how so many coaches from around the World differ in there perception and appreciation of Arsenal, and Wenger in particular, than those closer to home.
I hope I’m allowed to gloat a little.
..
5 Things I learnt from CS win over Chelsea
1. 75m player didn’t score, not even from the penalty spot.
2. Kola the ‘tank’ didn’t cost us a dime but he is already a hero.
3. Almost half Arsenal’s senior boys didn’t play, yet Chelsea struggled.
4. Before now Arsenal do get dubious red cards against Chelsea but now they get the deserved reds.
5. An unbiased ref is as important as not allowing sportmen compete under the influence.
Congratulations to the Arsenal for winning the first silverware of the season. Let’s go on to conquer the league, Europa, FA etc…
COYG
There was an incident that seems to have been missed in Walters report. Iwobi was one on one with Luiz & Laca was free on his right. Luiz pulled him back & down. It was a red card offence but I cannot recall any card being given. In fact I think that Luiz had sufficient offences to have been the first off the park. Yet again I see PGMOL talking to offenders (Azpilicueta) rather than book them. This is in my view unacceptable in a professional game where players are paid obscene fortunes to play. The least these men should know is the Laws that govern the game they earn their fortunes from.
The greatest player we have in our team is Kola bear(Kolasinac). His footballing brain, his passing, his interceptions & his scoring are second to none.
The incident you are talking about was Azpilicueta on Welbeck I think. Azpilicueta did receive a yellow card for it
Can someone explain to me how Cahill’s arm smash in to Per’s face is not a red card.
Surely an arm to the face that does the damage to Pers face is dangerous play accident or not.
Vince your probably right. I thought the card should have been red for stopping a clear goal scoring opportunity. The Arsenal players were through the chavs defence & only the pull back stopped a clear chance.
@Nitram,
Absolutely and the irony of it was one of the reasons I put the link up
And reading what he says – and what Mourinho has said quite a few times, they are all ‘envious’ of the fact that Arsene has control over the team, not Kroenke – who gets a lot of flak but no praise for that.
Interesting comments from Clattenburg. He always had the talent to be a good referee. Hopefully now he’s in the studio and not under the wing of the PGMOL he will give objective analysis all season.
Great game from the Arsenal. Everybody looked confident and up for it. Lovely that our free transfer scored our goal. The penalties were a hoot.
I see in the news, that Alexis was at the game and came out to meet the team on the win. He waves to the Arsenal fans, and some fans interpret this as goodbye? What they hell is he supposed to do, show them the bird?
Grrrrrrrrrrr!
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I finally see a picture of Per’s cut.
The human skull, and face in particular, has more nerves and blood vessels than perhaps it needs. A given impact produces more effect on the head, and moreso the face, than any other part of the body.
Once when I was doing athletic first aid for a college team, two players had a collision which resulted in an impact to my team’s player on the eyebrow, very similar to Per. For my player, there was no cut. The incident was on the far side of the field. By the time I crossed the field to get to him, his entire eye socket was swollen to the point where it stuck out like an egg (grade A Large sized egg). He had to spend about 10 days in hospital, because either the doctors were worred some of the blood would drain back into his eye, or some did drain back into his eye.
It would have been much better, if the skin on the brow would have broken, and allowed the blood to flow out.
Per got the better affect of that kind of collision. I would not doubt if he is only a concern for a short period of time.
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There is some transfer BS in the news.
A while ago, there was a story to the effect that the only thing Everton needed to sew up Champions League play next season, was to get some Icelander signed up. Which they had done. Today, there is a news blurb from these mental giants in the medja, to the effect that Everton now needs either Giroud or Welbeck to sew up Champions League play.
Okay, let’s assume that Arsenal humour the Evertonians and sell them one of these two players. What is the next news headline? All Everton need to sew up Champions League play next season is Lionel Messi.
It just never stops. The medja is always and forever completely bonkers. All of the people writing stories across all of the footballing nations, have a combined total number of brain cells of 1. They are all sharing a single brain cell. It must be bloody difficult for them to find new people to hire, they first need to find out if this new person also has the same brain cell (and only a single brain cell).
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The Willian dive seems to be a sticking point. I look forward to an educated opinion by the Untold crew, if they are still doing them.
I suppose if enough evidence comes up to justify the dive, not give the penalty, things will move on to some other point where Chelsea was hard done by the referee.
Both teams were pretty evenly matched providing a good game. If Chel$ had concentrated more on playing and not on cheating, they may have stood a better chance.
Hope the refs are as consistent during the season.
Arsenal has either:
1 Taken the Media, PL and FIFA(privately) to task about media and ref behaviour to Arsenal
or
2 Decided to follow/join the global agenda.
They were so “nice” to us in the last few weeks.
Hope it’s the first.
I didn’t think there was much difference between the teams. We were better the first 20, they were good the next 15. They controlled the first 10 of the 2nd half and then we grew back into the match. When they went down to 10 we had pretty much blunted their attacks and we were threatening. I am pretty happy with what I saw today. Mertesacker was great on the back line and we were pretty good going forward without Alexis, Koscielny, Ramsey and Oezil.
One wonders, if Chelsea won the headlines would have been Chelsea in double trophies, but since its Arsenal,no one sees the shield as a trophy ? if its won by Arsenal.
General media coverage seems to be critical of ref for booking Chelsea player for diving (presumably because he’s “not that kind of player”). They are claiming that there was “slight” contact from Bellerin.
So the usual narrative resumes as the season starts, – along with “Arsenal’s all too familiar defensive frailties and lack of leaders”.
Let’s not be misled by all this:- WE BEAT CHELSEA !!! Just like the FA Cup Final, media don’t like to have their confident predictions proved wrong.
Tony
Regarding the Red Card:
Am I right in my understanding that referees are told not to Yellow or Red card a player whilst he’s lying on the floor?
I’ve always thought that that was a rule, but when I hear the likes of Lawrenson, who is obviously an ‘expert’, I doubt myself.
Mark Lawrenson:
On the back of one goal, that although disappointing to concede was the type of goal every team concedes at some stage during a season, he draws the conclusion that we don’t have any ‘leaders’. The back 4 push up or hold a line and a forward/midfielder takes a gamble into the space and scores. Not great but as I say, it happens to every team.
Moan about the concession of the goal if you must, but to draw such a conclusion from it is simply mind boggling.
Now if I was a cynic I might come to the conclusion that Lawrenson had already decided that at some stage, no matter what, he was going to bang on about ‘Arsenal not having any leaders’, or am I being a bit harsh?
Regarding that notion, isn’t it strange how this team with no ‘leaders’ have a history of, and someone I’m sure will correct me if I’m wrong:
-Winning more matches with 10 man than any other team.
-Getting more points from a losing position than anyone else.
-Scoring more late goals (last 10 minutes) than anyone else.
Now I’ll be honest I have neither the time, nor the resources to back any of these claims with stats as I like to do, so I apologise in advance if I am wrong, but I don’t think I am.
And if I am right, this is hardly indicative of a team that lacks ‘leadership’ and ‘fighting spirit’ is it?
Chris Sutton “we’re always optimistic about Arsenal, but no I cant see it (winning the league)”
WTF ! Since when has he or ANY pundit been optimistic about our chances of winning anything.
More of the same old clichéd bollocks from the same old dimwits.
Nitram: referees are advised to show the yellow or red where the player is able to fully understand and acknowledge that they are being warned or ejected. That also includes ensuring that they are facing the referee when he or she shows the card. Experience has show that players can deny having been told they were being carded because they had their back turned, didn’t speak the language the referee was using, or were too far away, etc.
Walter may want to add a more in-depth explanation as well.
Absolutely spot on! They look and sound amateurish and bitter. Surely someone at the BBC must see their blatant hatred of Arsenal unless it’s the corporate policy.
4 days later and I’ve just re-watched the game on ArsenalPlayer.
Really if Hoddle genuinely thought the Chavs were the better team then he needs to change his medication.