Does the Community Shield winner go on to have a successful season?
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The Community Shield is a shiny plate of promise that can serve to be a glimpse into an optimistic future for the winner.
The Premier League champions take on the FA Cup victors to crown England’s finest.
This season, Man City prepare to take on Chelsea in the entertaining pre-season entrée.
But does winning the season curtain-raiser really matter?
We had a look at some of the previous winners of the competition and noticed it doesn’t necessarily mean it ends in glitz and glory…
2005 winners – Chelsea
This was bang at the start of Jose Mourinho’s love affair with Chelsea.
The Blues had stormed to the league title in his first season in charge. The Portuguese was splashing the cash on glistening new players in search of domination.
They came up against Arsenal who beat Manchester United on penalties in the FA Cup final in May.
In hindsight this was the start of Didier Drogba’s long-running hoodoo over the North London side.
His brace gunned down Arsenal and the Ivorian would go on to fire his side to yet another Premier League trophy in 2005-06.
2007 winners – Manchester United
Manchester United hadn’t featured in the pre-season showpiece for two seasons. But The Red Devils would go on to win the first domestic trophy at the new Wembley.
Sir Alex Ferguson’s men triumphed on penalties with Edwin van der Sar the hero, saving all three of Chelsea’s strikes.
The victory would act as a springboard for United to do the double during the 2007/08 campaign.
They pipped Chelsea to the title by two points and beat them again in the Champions League final.
2011 winners – Manchester United
United defeated ‘noisy neighbours’ Man City, in what was only their second ever meeting between the two in this competition.
City had gone into half-time 2-0 in front and this could have signalled the changing of the guard in Manchester.
But after a ‘gee up’ or a ‘hair-dryer’ from Ferguson, Man United banged three second-half goals including a 94th minute Nani winner.
But this only delayed the power shift as City would go on to beat Ferguson’s men to the title in the most-dramatic final day since Arsenal’s win in 1989.
2015 winners – Arsenal
Arsenal had won their first trophy for ten years in 2014 and they followed this up with back-to-back FA Cups in 2015.
They came up against Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea at Wembley. Arsene Wenger hadn’t tasted victory over the former Porto boss in thirteen previous attempts.
As the season unfolded Arsenal ended up being the nearest challengers to champions Leicester City – but still finished a massive ten points behind the Foxes.
This ended up being their penultimate Champions League campaign under Wenger. They also crashed out of both domestic cups by the quarter-final stage.
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