A Shield of Hope

It was indeed heartening to watch Arsenal concluding their pre-season with a win in the FA Community Shield, a convincing 3-0 win over League Champions, Manchester City at Wembley Stadium last night.

It was heartening too to see the turnout among GanuGooners at our viewing party. We may not chant as our counterparts in the west coast do but to be among friends watching the match was indeed a good experience.

Wosciech Szczesny looked commanding during his first appearance at Wembley this year with a number of good takes when City players managed to cross the ball into the box. He was also alert enough to stop a stiff shot from David Silva in the second half.

With Thomas Vermaelen departed for Barcelona, Arsene Wenger gave the armband to Mikel Arteta, a natural choice for me to succeed the Belgian defender. Per Mertesacker will be his deputy and the duo, in my opinion are the best choice for the job.

Mathieu Debuchy and Callum Chambers were among the new faces taking the field and quite a few were surprised when Wenger opted to start with four goals hero against Benfica last week, Yaya Sanogo in front with Alexis Sanchez, another new acquisition during the close season.

Unlike our encounters with City last season, this time there was an air of confidence about Arsenal this season, something that was missing quite a number of times which resulted in big score thrashing at the hands of our close opponents.

Despite the new faces on the field, it was an old face that opened the scoring when Santi Cazorla turned to beat City new custodian, Willy Caballero with a low shot after a good work by Sanogo in the 21st minute.

Then Sanogo was heavily involved in the second goal too when his physical attribute enabled him to hold off the challenge from a City defender before setting up Aaron Ramsey whose two touches saw the ball ending up in the net for the second time.

However the highlight of the match came on the hour mark when Olivier Giroud who came on as a substitute, struck a sweet shot from outside the penalty area that arched wonderfully over the outstretched hands of Caballero to give The Gunners their third goal.

City staged a rally towards the end of the match but could not get past what seemed to be a makeshift Arsenal defence with Chambers partnering Nacho Monreal as centre-halves with Debuchy and Kieran Gibbs as the full-backs.

Maybe it was just a glorified friendly but to register a pretty convincing win over one of your strong opponents would certainly boost your morale and confidence.

COYG!

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