Alvaro Morata missed a penalty on his Chelsea debut as Arsenal won an uncharacteristically feisty Community Shield in a shootout at Wembley.
Record signing Morata – a late substitute – dragged a poor effort wide moments after goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois had blazed over in the first use of a new penalty shootout system.
Record signing Morata – a late substitute – dragged a poor effort wide moments after goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois had blazed over in the first use of a new penalty shootout system.
Premier League champions Chelsea had gone ahead through Victor Moses, before Pedro was sent off for an ugly lunge on Mohamed Elneny.
From the resulting free-kick, debutant Sead Kolasinac headed the Gunners level to take the match to penalties.
The shootout – the first in English football to follow the ABBA format – saw Chelsea miss back-to-back penalties to allow Olivier Giroud to win the match from the spot.
The £60m signing from Real Madrid was left on the bench until the 74th minute and, after replacing the underwhelming Michy Batshuayi, wasted his only sight of goal by shooting over.
He then dragged a poor penalty wide in the shootout to hand Arsenal a chance they took.
Morata, and Conte, will take solace from the fact that the last team to win the Premier League title after winning the Community Shield were Manchester United back in 2010.
In his post match comment, Arsenal boss, Arsene Wenger had this to say:
“Well, I don’t know if it was a sending off or not but at that moment we were dominating. We had some difficult moments at the start of the second half but after that we dominated. We always looked dangerous.
“It is a dream to make the fans happy, a difficult dream, but we try hard. I would like that they stand behind the team as we might go through some very good periods and some not so good periods.
“We want to be united and together throughout the season.”
Meanwhile, his Chelsea colleague, Antonio Conte felt different about the game and said:
“I didn’t see the situation with the sending off. For this reason, it is very difficult for me to say something about this decision. This is the second game, after the FA Cup [final], that we finish with 10 men.
“I heard there was clearly a penalty but I did not see. We are working, we are trying to do our best. We had a tough pre-season, between the six days until we start the league it is important to be focused on the next game.”
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