Arsenal have been crowned the winners of this year’s FA Community Shield. The Gunners beat current League champions, Liverpool to clinch the trophy. Skipper Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang opened the scoring on the 12th minute and was levelled in the 73rd minute by Liverpool’s Takumi Minamino. The Gunners won 5-4 on penalty aggregates after a 1-1 draw.
Liverpool’s manager, Jurgen Klopp believes they were not lucky on the day. Even though he congratulated the Gunners for the victory, he believes they created lots of chances that should have resulted in goals.
“We had to play against a low block and a counter-attacking threat. But we should have created more because we had the ball quite a lot. But we had to be careful like crazy because of Aubameyang and they are strong in counter-attacking. So we had two really good moments when Sadio had the chances, and scored a good equalizer, but should have scored more and we didn’t do that. We have to take it, and the penalty shoot-out is always a lottery so we were unlucky. Congratulations to Arsenal. We respect the competition! A lot of things were good; I didn’t expect any sort of perfection. In the final third we need to be fresh and the rhythm failed a little bit. Today it was not enough.”
Arsenal manager,Mikel Arteta was delighted with his players and congratulated them for their hard work. He indicated that they are close to renewing the contract of their talisman, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.
“I am so happy. I knew the challenge we faced against incredible opponents. David Luiz for example trained one day, so thank you very much to the players for the performance. I was pleased with our courage, how we pressed and made decisions. We sustained it in the second half. The last ten minutes, we dominated and created two good chances to win. Hopefully they can get used to it, it creates belief and a good atmosphere. Big games, big moments, big players … Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was magnificent! And his new contract? We are close!”
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang believes Arsenal deserves the win since they had played so well. The Gabonese international and Arsenal skipper said “I feel very good. Today we deserved the win. I will take this trophy and hopefully this time I won’t drop it! I am very happy. We’re going to see [about a new contract]. Today we get the trophy.”
The Football Association Community Shield is English football’s annual match contested at Wembley Stadium between the champions of the previous Premier League season and the holders of the FA Cup. If the Premier League champions also win the FA Cup, then the league runners-up provide the opposition. The match is played every August as the “traditional curtain-raiser” and first trophy of the new English domestic football season.
The FA community shield was founded in 1908 and the most successful club is Manchester united with 21 titles. Arsenal came into this game as winners of the FA cup whist Liverpool are the current league champions. Prior to this game, both teams have won 15 Community Shield trophies and have also played this competition 22 times each. Arsenals now have 16 FA Community Shield titles and are 5 titles behind Manchester united.
