Arsenal delivered an emphatic early warning to their Premier League rivals as Mikel Arteta’s champions swept Manchester City aside 3-0 in the Community Shield, handing Enzo Maresca a chastening start to life after Pep Guardiola.
Riccardo Calafiori struck after just 24 seconds at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff before Kai Havertz doubled Arsenal’s advantage in the 28th minute. Captain Martin Odegaard then added a superb third immediately after the interval to ensure the first trophy of the English season belonged to Arsenal.
For City, however, the result carried significance beyond the loss of a piece of silverware. Their first competitive game since Guardiola ended his extraordinary decade in Manchester provided an immediate reminder of the scale of the transition facing Maresca.
Arsenal required barely one attack to expose them. Myles Lewis-Skelly allowed the ball to travel across him before threading an incisive pass through the City defence, and Calafiori timed his run perfectly before calmly beating Gianluigi Donnarumma.
City attempted to settle thereafter, and Phil Foden forced an excellent save from David Raya, while Erling Haaland also found opportunities. But Arsenal looked considerably sharper whenever possession changed hands.
Their second goal summed up the difference. Odegaard curled a delivery towards Christos Tzolis, whose intelligent header across goal found Havertz. The German made no mistake, heading beyond Donnarumma to make it 2-0 after 28 minutes. Tzolis, one of Arsenal’s new arrivals, produced an impressive competitive debut and was involved repeatedly in their most dangerous attacks.
City could have found a route back before half-time. Haaland lifted an effort over after escaping Gabriel before Raya made another excellent save from the Norwegian following Jeremy Doku’s cutback. Instead, Arsenal almost added a third before the break, with Josko Gvardiol clearing Odegaard’s effort from the goal-line.
Any hope of a City comeback disappeared three minutes after the restart. Tzolis again supplied the ammunition, playing the ball into Odegaard’s path. The Arsenal captain glided beyond Gvardiol, shaped to shoot, sent Donnarumma to ground with a delightful dummy and rolled the ball into an empty net.
City responded by making changes, with Omar Marmoush replacing Haaland and later Rayan Cherki and Rico Lewis entering, but there was no meaningful revival. Arsenal were soon moving the ball around to chants of “olé” from their supporters.
It was a brutal introduction for Maresca, whose appointment inevitably comes with comparisons to Guardiola. The Spaniard departed after transforming City across 10 seasons, winning six Premier League titles and the Champions League among a vast collection of silverware.
Maresca knows City’s methods intimately, having previously worked under Guardiola, but his first competitive afternoon illustrated that inheritance alone guarantees nothing. Arsenal leave Cardiff with another trophy and their authority strengthened. City leave with the first uncomfortable questions of the post-Guardiola era already waiting.
Probuddha Bhattacharjee is a sports writer and analyst with expertise spanning cricket, football, and multi-sport events, with a strong emphasis on data-driven journalism and tactical storytelling. He currently focuses on international cricket, the Indian Premier League, global tournaments, and emerging trends shaping modern sport, blending advanced statistics with strong narrative context to explain performance, strategy, and decision-making. His work aims to bridge the gap between numbers and storytelling, helping readers understand not just what happened on the field, but the tactical and structural reasons behind it. Trained in data journalism through the Google News Initiative (GNI) Data Journalism Lab, Probuddha works extensively with ball-by-ball datasets, performance metrics, and trend-based modelling to produce evidence-backed reports, explainers, and long-form features. His analytical approach focuses not only on outcomes but also on process—selection strategies, phase-wise tactics, workload management, and the influence of preparation and planning on match results. He is particularly interested in how statistical patterns reshape conventional cricketing narratives and provide clearer tactical insight for modern audiences. Beyond cricket, Probuddha has written analytical and news-driven pieces on football and other major sporting events, with a growing interest in sports governance, scheduling dynamics, and the economics of elite competitions. He also tracks how rule changes, franchise structures, and broadcast pressures influence the evolution of contemporary sport. He has previously contributed to platforms such as OneCricket, Sportskeeda, and CrickTracker, and continues to specialise in analytical storytelling, live coverage, and audience-focused reporting. His work prioritises clarity, context, and credibility, while consistently exploring innovative ways to present data through accessible narratives and structured match analysis.Read More
