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City’s First Test As Champions

The World Cup has come to an end, pre-season is almost over, and the English Premier League is going to be back in our lives in a week. Isn’t it a great time to be alive? Before we get to all of that, though, we’ve got to deal with the Community Shield as Chelsea take on Manchester City. The champions are coming off the back of a historic season that saw them breeze to the title domestically, and now, Pep Guardiola will be aiming to expand their dominance to European competition.

At the same time, though, the pride of being the Champions of England is something that shouldn’t be taken for granted – especially when you consider how difficult it is to win back-to-back championships over here. The word ‘dynasty’ is usually reserved for American teams, but when it comes to City, they’re a team who are in the conversation for creating their own dynasty so long as they can maintain their consistency and not let it go to their heads.

Take the Community Shield as an example. That’s a competition that very few people consider to be important, but if you’re able to set a really good tempo and put in a really high pace, that could lead you on towards really big things once the domestic season starts. Lifting silverware is something that shouldn’t be taken for granted, even if the trophy in question is viewed as only being one or two steps above things like the Emirates Cup.

We’re only 45 minutes away (if you’re reading this in that time) from the Community Shield this year, and from the team selections alone, it’s clear to see that City are the favourites to win this game – even more so than they were in the days and weeks prior.

The Blues will be focusing most of their attention on breaking back into the top four this season, whereas City can realistically compete on four different levels. Sure, there are several teams in Europe that are considered to be far superior to them, but that doesn’t always mean that they’re going to come out on top over the course of two-legs in an elimination type of format.

In terms of how they’ve strengthened over the course of the summer transfer window, both teams have been relatively quiet despite how different their seasons were last time around. City realise that they can probably win the league again with the squad they had, and adding Mahrez is only going to improve their chances in that respect. Chelsea, on the other hand, have a high-quality squad that just needs to learn how to gel as a unit before being thrust into the ‘spotlight’ so to speak.

As we look ahead to the game itself, it seems obvious to suggest that Chelsea need to set a pace from the word go. They need to make sure that City are unable to settle on the ball because if they can get into their rhythm, then as we know, they can be virtually unstoppable. Pep has started to install the kind of mentality that was on display when he managed Barcelona and Bayern Munich, in the sense that his teams are often able to perform brilliantly under high-pressure situations.

This game will provide Chelsea’s youngsters with a huge opportunity to stake their claim for a place in the first team, and Maurizio Sarri is well aware of that. He’s still new to English football and he’s working out what suits him best, which should make for an incredibly entertaining game against a City side that is always full of quality.