Prior to this year’s addition of Community Shield, the last three games finished after a penalty shootout. Today’s match between Arsenal and Manchester City didn’t get even close to that. Mikel Arteta’s men simply destroyed the Citizens 3-0 and made the best possible prelude to the Premier League season, which starts next Friday. Post-Guardiola era started terrible for his successor Enzo Maresca. The former City assistant got some nice gigs just due to the fact that he was Pep’s right hand, and UAE owners rushed to get him as soon as the Spaniard announced he was leaving. But today’s demolition by Arsenal will be deeply worrying for the owners. Yes, it’s only Community Shield, yes, Manchester City had almost 20 World Cup participants who came late and still haven’t reached their full fitness, but this was embarrassing by all merits.And what about Arsenal? They looked like they played a Premier League title-decider and not the Community Shield. While Maresca started some World Cup players, Arteta decided to rest all but Madueke, as Bukayo Saka, Declan Rice and Eberechi Eze were on the bench. And the Gunners were still much, much better team. In fact, they scored after only 24 seconds, forced Maresca to make all five changes after only 60 minutes, and their dominance was big, that the Arsenal fans chanted ‘Ole’ after only 56 minutes. What a humiliation for a team which dominated possession during the Guardiola years. The Gunners look like the season has started months ago, not now, and will surely be a top contender for another title. They played excellent, with aggression, with dominance, they created chances and scored. And Arteta didn’t even started his strongest 11….The game started with a goal. After just 24 seconds the Gunners were up 1-0. In a long action in which Manchester seemed to have cleared the danger, Lewis-Skelly gave a perfect ball thought the middle and Ricardo Calafiori finished like a pro-striker. Five minutes later, he could have scored the second already, but the ball deflected to Donnarumma’s hands. The City woke up after 20 minutes, when Foden was left alone near the penalty area and took a great shot, but Raya was there to save it. But eight minutes later Donnamumma made a poor reaction and allowed a silly goal from Kai Havertz. Odegaard got the ball to the back post for Tzolis, and the new signing obliged with a great header. It found Havertz in the middle, who nodded the ball goalwards and used Donnarumma’s poor effort to score. City should have scored in the 40th minute, but Raya was there again to save Haaland’s powerful shot. Then Doku picked up a cutback from Semenyo on the by-line – only to see his effort turned behind by White's hip.New boy Tzolis added his second assist in his first official game for the Gunners, as he served his captain Odegaard, who was all alone and even managed to use his dribbling to send Donnarumma on the ground before finishing into the empty net. It was just 48th minute of the game. Maresca used all of his substitutes by the 60th minute, but little changed as Citizens simply couldn't cope with Arsenal. Everything was bad, the defense, the midfield and the attack. The only meaningful thing which happened from the third goal until the end of the game was Semeyo's great shot in the 81st minute, which Raya saved again. The Spanish goalkeeper was among three players which really stood out, while the other two were Tzolis and captain Odegaard. The Gunners are eager for season to start.COMMUNITY SHIELDArsenal – Manchester City 3-0 (2-0)/Calafiori 1, Havertz 28, Odegaard 48/
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