Arsene Wenger praised his players for their comprehensive 3-0 victory against Manchester City in the FA Charity Shield on Sunday, describing the win as “important” forArsenal’s confidence heading into the new season, which begins next weekend. “To win today gives us a positive platform to prepare,” the Frenchman said. “It was important forour confidence to win the game and it was even more important to have a big part in the game. That is a comfort to me to see that we can produce the kind of quality we have produced for some longpatches in the game.”
As the Guardian points out, Arsenal had a terrible record against top teams last season, failing to beat Man City and Chelsea, while losing away to bothLiverpool and Everton. “That’s why it was important for us today not to lose the game,” Wenger added. “Last year we were very consistent against below-top-six teams and notconsistent against top-six teams. The year before it was the reverse. I hope this year it will be right on both sides.”
Meanwhile, City coach Manuel Pellegrini put the heavy lossdown to missing personnel. The Chilean tactician warned that the defending Premier League champ could face a difficult start to the campaign with so many players missing a large portion of preseason.“It will be difficult to be ready,” Pellegrini said. “We have seven players who have just worked five days and another five players who have worked eight or nine days, so we will seewhich of them are ready [for next weekend’s opener] and which of them are not ready.”