Arsenal - Chelsea: The signal shot

The Community Shield match today, August 6, is an opportunity for the two London giants to review their preparations before the Premier League enters the new season.

*The match takes place at 8:00 p.m. on August 6, Hanoi time.

Before playing the Community Shield, Arsenal had won the Emirates Cup, an annual tournament held at home. However, their fans could not be happy about that. Especially when the team won the title thanks to a strange scoring method (based on the number of goals scored, so even though they won one and lost one, they still finished above Sevilla, who won both matches).

Before that, Arsenal suffered a heavy 0-3 defeat to Chelsea in a friendly match at the Bird's Nest Stadium in China. Arsene Wenger's team seemed unable to show their mettle against opponents of equal caliber, despite the presence of the most expensive contract in the club's history, Alexandre Lacazette.

Arsenal (red and white) have a psychological advantage with two recent victories in the Community Shield.

The absence of star man Alexis Sanchez could be an explanation, but it is hard to accept given the uncertainty surrounding the Chilean's future. He could still leave, despite returning to training with his teammates and Wenger repeatedly insisting that Sanchez is not for sale.

Arsenal's biggest concern is squad depth. Apart from Lacazette, they have only added left-back Sead Kolasinac on a free transfer from Schalke 04. The midfield, which was devastated last season by injuries to Santi Cazorla and Aaron Ramsey, has not improved. In addition, in the central defence, Wenger only has two reliable names: Laurent Koscielny and Shkodran Mustafi. If either of them cannot play, goalkeeper Petr Cech will immediately have to struggle.

*Chelsea and Arsenal's road to the Community Shield

Arsenal's problems are also a headache for Antonio Conte. Despite bringing in three top names in the summer - Alvaro Morata, Tiemoue Bakayoko, Antonio Rudiger and goalkeeper Willy Caballero - on free transfers, they are only replacements for Diego Costa, Nemanja Matic, John Terry and Asmir Begovic - who have left or are no longer in the Italian coach's plans. Not to mention, the reigning Premier League champions have also let many young players, capable of playing for the first team, leave Stamford Bridge such as Juan Cuadrado, Dominic Solanke, Christian Atsu, Bertrand Traore, Nathan Ake, Nathaniel Chalobah.

The former Juventus captain has repeatedly complained about the difficulty of recruiting players, but he seems powerless to strengthen the squad. Chelsea's first team list now has 20 players, but Diego Costa is not used, and Andreas Christensen and Charly Musonda are too young. Conte will not be able to compete on four fronts, including the Premier League, Champions League, FA Cup and League Cup with less than 15 players (not counting the three goalkeepers).

The match is an opportunity for Conte (left) and Wenger to review the personnel preparation process for the new season.

Conte won the scudetto with Juventus three times and the Premier League with Chelsea in his first season, but in the most difficult arena of the Champions League, the 48-year-old coach has never succeeded. In the 2012-2013 season, Juventus was eliminated in the quarter-finals, after two 0-2 losses to Bayern Munich. The 2013-2014 season was even more disastrous, the "Old Lady" was eliminated in the group stage, playing in the Europa League and being defeated by Benfica in the semi-finals.

With the heavy investment of the two teams from Manchester and Liverpool, defending the Premier League title will be a difficult task for Conte. If he cannot use the achievements in the Champions League to "compensate", the ability of this coach to keep his position will be significantly reduced, especially with a boss who always demands achievements like Roman Abramovich.

Improving the squad with new faces is something Conte must think about if he wants to avoid the mistakes of Jose Mourinho two years ago. To do that, he needs to win the first title, before convincing the Russian boss to open his wallet.

What the coaches say

Arsene Wenger: "For us, this is a great opportunity to replicate the performance in the FA Cup final. I can confirm that Chelsea seem to have kept basically 95% of the squad they had last season. They have addedTiemoue Bakayoko, a strong player, a very good challenger, similar to Nemanja Matic. They also replacedCosta is equal to Morata. Morata may score less than Costa but he is also a great scorer and can also create goals."

Antonio Conte: "It was a shame to lose the FA Cup final to Arsenal after a really impressive season for us.we. Now it's a different game. We know Arsenal are a strong team. We know it's going to be a tough game but we want to start the season with a win. The pre-season is over. This is an official game and it's a fight for the first title of the season. It's an important game for sure."

According to VNE