You must only go back to the 1st of August to find the final game of the 2019/20 English football season to involve Premier League clubs. It was the FA Cup final, a match won by Arsenal who defeated Chelsea 2-1 to lift the trophy. Just under a months later, we have the curtain raiser to the new English football season, the Community Shield.
The match will take place on Saturday the 29th of August at Wembley Stadium, with Arsenal being joined by Premier League champions, Liverpool.
Jurgen Klopp’s men played their last competitive match on the 26th of July at Newcastle United in the Premier League. As was the case for the majority of their league games last season, Liverpool won the game and they have lost only one of their last 6 competitive matches. Interestingly, the defeat came at Arsenal in the Premier League although Liverpool had already wrapped up the title prior to that game.
Liverpool have played a couple of friendly games in the build up to this match including a 3-0 win over German club Stuttgart and a 2-2 draw with Austrian club Red Bull Salzburg.
One thing you can always guarantee with Liverpool is goals and looking back on their games, including friendly matches, they have scored in 9 of their last 10 games. However, defensively they have not been as good and Liverpool have failed to keep a clean sheet in their last 5 competitive matches.
As highlighted above, Arsenal finished last season in style by defeating Chelsea in the FA Cup final. At the time of writing, it appears as though they have managed to keep hold of star forward Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and added Willian to their ranks.
The Gunners finished last season strongly with 4 wins from their final 5 matches. In addition to the victory over Chelsea at Wembley, Arsenal beat Liverpool and Watford in the Premier League plus Manchester City in the semi-final of the FA Cup.
Much like their opponents, Arsenal have little trouble when it comes to scoring goals. They have found the back of the net at least once in 11 of their last 12 competitive games. However, Arsenal have kept just a single clean sheet in their last 6 competitive matches.
Team news and Liverpool will be without midfielder Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain who is not expected back until the end of September. They also have doubts over the fitness of Harry Wilson, Jordan Henderson, and Trent Alexander-Arnold.
Arsenal make the short trip to Wembley without Gabriel Martinelli who has a knee injury. Calum Chambers, Pablo Mari Villar, Shkodran Mustafi, and Matteo Guendouzi are doubts.
This should be a great start to the new season, with both teams finding the back of the net. However, Liverpool remain the favourites and should have enough to win this match and get their season off to a good start.