Community Shield 2023: Date, teams, venue, how to watch, odds and more | OneFootball

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It’s less than a month now until the first piece of silverware is up for grabs before the official start of the 2023/24 Premier League season.

The Community Shield is usually an opportunity for the respective winners of last season's FA Cup and Premier League to battle for some early silverware before the official start of the new season. However, after Manchester City’s historic treble winning season, they will face Premier League runners-up — Arsenal — in this year’s Community Shield.

Last season Liverpool faced off against Manchester City, and represented Erling Haaland’s first match in English football, before he would go on to smash the Premier League goalscoring record. Liverpool would end up eventual winners 3-1, with Darwin Núñez wrapping up the game in the 94th minute.

This year, Manchester City play in the Community Shield for the third year running and will be looking to win their first Community Shield since 2019, when they beat Liverpool on penalties. We have all you need to know ahead of the game.

Date, kick-off time, venue

The 2023 Community Shield will take place on Sunday 6th August 2023 with kick-off at 5:30pm, half an hour later than last year. This gives Manchester City just a five-day turnaround before their Premier League title defence commences away against Burnley.

Arsenal will have an extra day to prepare for their opening league match, where they’ll host Nottingham Forest.

This game represents a significant milestone in the competition’s history, as it will be its 100th edition. Fittingly for such an occasion, the game will be played at Wembley Stadium, the home of English football. This differs from last year, where the game was actually played at Leicester City’s King Power Stadium, due to the final of the Women’s Euros.

Out of a 90,000 capacity, Arsenal have been allocated 32,369 seats in the East end of the stadium. Manchester City’s faithful will take up 31,500 seats, sitting opposite the Gunners fans in the West end.

Teams involved

As previously mentioned, powerhouses Manchester City will take on Arsenal for the Community Shield.

As of today, Arsenal have been by far the more active side in this summer’s transfer window. They secured the signature of highly–rated England midfielder and former West Ham captain Declan Rice for €116.6 million. Alongside Rice in midfield, Arsenal acquired Kai Havertz from their London rivals, Chelsea, for €75 million.

After their struggles with defensive anchor William Saliba’s injury at the back end of last season, Arsenal have also brought in reinforcements at the back. Highly-rated 22-year-old Dutchman Jurrien Timber has been signed for €40 million from Ajax.

Manchester City have also raided Chelsea’s midfield in what is currently their only summer signing. Croatian Mateo Kovacic was bought for €29 million and will join City’s star-studded midfield.

It will be interesting to see how the new boys fare, in what will be their most competitive match for their new clubs before the start of the season.

Both teams will have plenty of time to prepare in their respective pre-season warm up tours: Arsenal play a total of five matches, while Manchester City play slightly less with just three games lined up.

Arsenal play three matches in the United States, where they recently faced off against the MLS All-Stars, winning 5-0. They will go on to play Barcelona and Manchester United. On their return to England, they will play Monaco at the Emirates Stadium. They also came up against Nürnberg in Germany, where they drew 1-1.

Manchester City are yet to play any of their pre-season matches, but will go on to face Yokohama F Marinos and Bayern Munich in Japan. They’ll then travel to South Korea to play Atlético Madrid for their final match before their encounter with Arsenal.

The match will be available to watch for free in the U.K. on ITV, and will be streamed on ITVX. Scottish channel STV are also showing the match for free with STV player streaming it. Coverage will begin a couple of hours before kick-off.

For those viewing the United States, you can watch the match on ESPN+ or via the ESPN app.

Odds

As you’d expect for the reigning treble holders, Manchester City are overwhelming favourites according to the bookmakers.

Here are the latest odds for the 2023 Community Shield:

Manchester City win - 8/11

Draw (after 90 minutes) - 14/5

Arsenal win - 7/2

Our prediction

It would be putting it kindly to say that Arsenal have struggled against Manchester City in recent seasons, failing to register a single victory or draw in their previous eight meetings. Their last victory over the Cityzens came in a 2-0 win in the 2020 FA Cup semi-final.

In two of the most crucial Premier League matches in the title race last season, Arsenal lost 3-1 and 4-1 against Pep Guardiola’s men, so the signs aren’t looking positive for the Gunners.

However, Manchester City haven’t been invulnerable when it comes to the Community shield, losing back-to-back matches in 2021 and 2022. They were beaten by Leicester City and Liverpool, so there is no reason why Arsenal can’t also produce a shock victory.

The Gunners have also had more recent success in this competition, they were victorious in 2020, defeating Liverpool 5-4 on penalties. With City’s historic struggles in the Community Shield – coupled with Arsenal’s strong form last season and their impressive squad additions – we can hope to be in for a close game.

It’s hard to look past Manchester City when predicting a winner, though. Despite a team without many additions, and rumours of several departures, they will be favourites to beat any team they come up against this coming season.

Although City have won it all now under Pep Guardiola, this team won’t have lost any of its hunger for trophies, and will look to secure a perfect start to the season in this inaugural game.