The National’s Sport cover for the Monday, August 3 issue, featuring Arsene Wenger and Jose Mourinho as they locked horns in the Community Shield.
Arsenal edged out Chelsea in the curtain raiser, with Wenger scoring his first ever win over a Mourinho-coached Chelsea side.
Richard Jolly writes this could be the prelude to a genuine title fight between the London rivals:
“Previous games had suggested Arsenal harboured an inferiority complex. This did not; FA Cup winners deservedly defeated Premier League winners in the Community Shield.”
As each of the previous meetings of Wenger’s Arsenal and Mourinho’s Chelsea ended with a humbling for the former, Sunday “was altogether happier and brought a novel feeling: beating Mourinho”.
Adds Richard:
“The Chelsea manager’s reaction was typically intriguing. He waited for the winners to shake hands with all the Arsenal players but not Wenger and threw his medal away.
“But while he may have blanked a victorious Wenger on the day, it will be harder for him, and the champions Chelsea, to ignore the Frenchman and Arsenal this season.”
For the interested, Arsenal and Chelsea first meet in the Premier League this season on September 19 at Stamford Bridge.
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