AT WEMBLEY
Another piece of silverware for Pep Guardiola to count, even if the only real significance of this season-
opening Community Shield might be counting the cost of injury.
Leroy Sane went off as a genuine casualty early on, while Kevin De Bruyne was substituted as a precaution
amid so many issues with his fitness from last season. It was Manchester City that held their nerve in the
shoot-out, however, with Gabriel Jesus scoring the winner and Gini Wijnaldum having his spot-kick saved
by one of the game’s better performers in Claudio Bravo.
You could almost say it was last season’s run-in in microcosm. Liverpool made one mistake, but City made
none to just get over the line.
This obviously didn’t have any of that tension, though, in what ended up quite a fun afternoon. The pally
reactions after the game told us that.
As to what it will tell us about this season, well, not that much. For all that the match ended with a vaunted
test of mental strength, the theme of it was fitness and how well either are set for the new campaign.
City started brilliantly but faded. Liverpool started sluggishly but slogged their way back into it. Neither
were fully on it but both had hugely impressive spells.
City’s came from the off. Within minutes, an electrically alert Raheem Sterling had snapped onto Joe
Gomez’s hesitancy for Leroy Sane to go close.
That – a City attacker scorching through a surprisingly open Liverpool defence – became one of the more
common sights of the game, albeit not involving Sane. He soon went off injured, potentially jeopardising a
move to Bayern Munich in the process.
No matter to City in this first half, mind. They just continued in the same vein, just as they continued in the
same vein as from their last match at Wembley, that utter evisceration of Watford in a freak-show of an FA
Cup final.
Their players were still putting on the same show of talent. The opening goal was one of those moves that
was the perfect illustration of the tight technical ability of these players, as De Bruyne perfectly headed it
down for David Silva, the playmaker offered the kind of divine instinctive flick-on that has defined his
sparkling City career, and Sterling finished. That last touch was a bit clumsier, but proved to be enough
with Alisson was caught out by the tepidity of the shot.
Not that Sterling cared as he celebrated his first goal against his old club.
Against that kind of fluidity, Liverpool were initially more stuttering. They weren’t fully on it, as was almost
personified by Mohamed Salah. He was up to speed in terms of fitness, as shown when he left Oleksandr
Zinchenko on the floor by rampaging past him, but maybe not in terms of match-fitness. So many of his
finishes were just too weak.
What Liverpool lacked in sharpness, however, they made up for in doggedness.