Venue: Wembley Stadium
Date: 2 August, 2015
Kick- off: 15:00 BST
At long last, after a summer break seemingly full of women’s football and slightly less sunshine, today sees the clichéd ‘curtain raiser’ to the 2015-16 season with the Charity Shield.
Today’s game will be the 14th meeting between Jose Mourinho and Arsene Wenger none of which have been won by the Arsenal manager. But hang on before you start wetting yourself here because Arsenal have had a decent summer, with 2 pre-season tournaments under their belts, beating Everton, Lyon and Wolfsburg and the hacks as ever working themselves up over this season’s title push from Wenger’s men. Chelsea meanwhile seem to have been frowned upon for only drawing against PSG and Barcelona before beating the pair of them in penalties. So if we believe what we read in the rags and what Wilshere has to say, we’ll struggle to hold our own against them.
Let’s not mourn our loss too soon though because whilst Arsenal might have soundly beat City in this fixture last season, the last time we met them in the Community Shield, it was a blue day.
MANAGER’S VIEWS
Going into this afternoon’s game, having shrugged off Mourinho’s record against him, Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger says “You know, it will not be a friendly, because it is just like that — and it is good like that. That’s part of our game now — you have to accept that every game is judged as though it’s definite. But you know in real life it is not like that. The tribunal is out there and we’ll draw conclusions from Sunday, but no matter if it’s positive or negative we have to continue on our way and focus on ourselves.”
Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho meanwhile, says “I just want my club to get the best possible result. It doesn’t matter if it’s Arsenal, it doesn’t matter who the manager is. I just want my teams, my clubs to try to get the best possible results. That’s the only thing that matters. I didn’t think about it (Wenger) until about a couple of weeks before I play against his team. And I try to understand what he is thinking, try to understand what can be his game plan. Just that.”
SQUAD NEWS
For Arsenal, Tomas Rosicky, Danny Welbeck, David Ospina and Alexis Sanchez are all unlikely and, Mathieu Flamini is a doubt. Petr Cech should make his first official start.
For Chelsea, Diego Costa and Gary Cahill have been passed fit and Mourinho has a full squad to select from.
TEAMS
ARSENAL (Possible line-up): Cech, Debuchy, Mertesacker, Koscielny, Monreal, Coquelin, Ramsey, Cazorla, Ozil, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Walcott
CHELSEA (Possible line-up): Courtois, Ivanovic, Terry, Zouma, Azpilicueta, Matic, Fabregas, Willian, Oscar, Hazard, Remy
FORM
ARSENAL (last five in all competitions): W/W/W/W/W
CHELSEA (last five in all competitions): W/W/L/D/D
OTHER STUFF
-Arsenal have gone 482 minutes without a goal against Chelsea.
-Arsenal have won their last four games at the new Wembley
-Chelsea have won eight of their 13 games at the new Wembley
-Arsenal have only won one of the last five Community Shield matches
-Neither side has failed to score in games at the new Wembley Stadium
PREDICTION
Ask Jack Wilshere and the sycophants drooling all over Wenger in the press, it should be a pretty one sided affair apparently.
Blue is the colour
