Okay so there is no doubt that Arsenal winning the Community Shield against the Premier League champions Chelsea was a good thing, and there are plenty of positive things for us Gooners to take from the game, not least the way a weakened Arsenal team performed against a Chelsea team with far fewer of the first team unavailable.
But let’s just take a step away from the celebrations for a minute shall we? This does not mean that the Gunners are going to storm to the EPL trophy this season, not by a long chalk. I am not saying that we won’t win it or that we cannot win it, just that we should not make too much of the Community Shield win.
After all this is the third time in four years that Arsenal have lifted the first trophy of the season and the previous two did not lead to league glory for the Gunners. In fact I think there can be more a danger of overconfidence or complacency and we cannot afford to let that happen again.
Last season we were not in it but we did beat Man City in the final pre-season game, only to play like puddings and ship four goals in a home loss to Liverpool on the opening day. The year before that Arsenal won the Asia trophy, the Emirates Cup and the Community Shield as we won every game before losing our opening league match 2-0 at home to West Ham.
The year before that we did win our opener against Crystal Palace after beating Man City to the Shield quite comfortably but then our title challenge faltered and Arsenal did not win another league game for over a month and by mid-October Chelsea were runaway leaders.
So be happy that we lifted the trophy at Wembley but also hope that it does not go to the players’ heads this time, because we need to hit the ground running and fight for every ball when the season really starts.
D.N.