Man City can set tone of Premier League title race against Arsenal

The Community Sheild is ultimately pointless.

It's nice to win of course and Manchester City will certainly be desperate to do so this time around on their quest to claim six trophies in a single calendar year, with the UEFA Super Cup and the Club World Cup still to come. But losing wouldn't be a major heartbreak given it's ultimately a glorified friendly.

But this time around it could have a little extra spice. Fittingly, the curtain raiser for the forthcoming Premier League season will take place between the two teams that battled it out for the title last year as Pep Guardiola's side take on old foes Arsenal. For the majority of last season, the Gunners were leading the way and were big favourites to claim the crown. City were struggling to click or put a long run of wins together whereas Arsenal were passing every challenge they faced.

ALSO READ: Man City agree £77.5m fee for Josko Gvardiol

A quirk of the fixture list meant the two sides hadn't met in the first half of the campaign and they didn't play each other until an FA Cup game in January. It was billed as the first round between the two contenders with more on the line than just the next round, the chance to deal the first blow in the title race.

While Guardiola named his strongest side possible, Mikel Arteta rested some of his key players. Captain Martin Odegaard, Gabriel Martinelli, William Saliba, Aaron Ramsdale, Ben White and Oleksandr Zinchenko were all on the bench. City clinched it 1-0.

The feeling at the time was that Arsenal could easily shrug off a defeat to City having played a weakened team and perhaps wouldn't mind having one less competition to worry about. But those suggestions didn't quite take into account the confidence City gained from