Liverpool vs Manchester City
17:00, Saturday 30th July
King Power Stadium, Leicester
FA Community Shield
Referee: Craig Pawson
After a slightly condensed summer break, competitive club football returns this weekend with the annual domestic curtain-raiser – Liverpool and Manchester City, key rivals during the tenures of Jurgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola, face off in the 100th Community Shield match. Though the break between seasons inevitable ends up feeling a week or two too long, the relatively short football summer has perhaps provided a welcome break during 2022 – this is particularly true for Liverpool and their supporters, who had a particularly breathless second half of 2021-22 and ended-up playing in every competitive match they could possibly have done last year. The spring period brought a relentless run of two-match weeks, with competition on all fronts before drawing to a close amidst the tension & controversy allowed to develop in Paris.
Manchester City, as we know all too well, qualified for their place in Saturday’s season curtain-raiser courtesy of their 6th league title in eleven seasons (and 8th overall). Despite a brief early-season flirtation with the prospect of challenging from Chelsea, Liverpool really were the only true challengers to City during 2021-22 and the title-race only truly reached boiling point during the final weeks of something of a season of two halves. Going into the early January break for the FA Cup 3rd Round fixtures, City had dropped just ten points from twenty-one games and held an eight point advantage; ten successive victories through winter and into spring saw the Reds force their way back into consideration, whilst City had dropped points. The top two went into May separated by just a point, but both took ten points from their final four matches, with City claiming the title.
Having lifted the League Cup in February, reached the European Cup Semi Final, and seen off Shrewsbury Town, Cardiff City, Norwich City, Nottingham Forest, and City themselves on route to the FA Cup Final, Klopp’s side went into May with quadruple hopes still alive in the minds if supporters. At least a double was secured during the middle of the month – as with in the League Cup Final, Chelsea and Liverpool played out a 0-0 draw before the Reds came out victorious on penalties, this time courtesy of a Kostas Tsimikas winner. Liverpool would ultimately have to settled for the two trophies already bagged – City of course claimed the league title and Liverpool once again fell to defeat to Real Madrid in a European Cup Final marred by event-mismanagement & negligence, and scandalous misdirection in terms of response. Safe back in Liverpool, the players’ homecoming & trophy parade would thankfully prove more uplifting than bittersweet for the supporters in attendance.
Liverpool sit third behind only Manchester United and Arsenal in terms of their competition record, having won the Shield outright on ten occasions and shared it on a further five. The most recent victories came under Gerard Houllier in 2001 (a 2-1 victory over Manchester United, following the Reds’ famous 2000-01 cup treble) and Rafa Benitez in 2006 (a 2-1 win against Chelsea, following the memorable FA Cup win against West Ham United). City have added three recent wins to their six overall – all coming off the back of league title wins, Roberto Mancini’s City beat Chelsea 3-2 in 2012, which Guardiola’s side beat Chelsea 2-0 in 2018 and claimed a 5-4 penalty win after a 1-1 draw with Liverpool in 2019. Saturday’s represents only the second meeting of the sides in this competition, following the 2019 game between 2018-19’s top two.
For neutrals, the box-office signing of the summer was of course Manchester City’s long-expected signing of Erling Haaland. The Leeds-born son of ex-Citizen Alfe-Inge has joined City from Dortmund for a fee of £51m, and boasts a record of 115 goals in his last 116 games during his time at Dortmund and, previously, Red Bull Salzburg. City have also added English midfield Kalvin Phillips to their ranks, whilst Gabriel Jesus, Raheem Sterling, Oleksandr Zinchenko, and the influential Fernandinho represent their highest-profile departures. City have spent time in the United States during pre-season, beating Club America and Bayern Munich in Houston and Green Bay respectively.
Liverpool have of course added fire-power of their own this summer, securing the services of Uruguayan forward Darwin Nunez from Benfica for £65m – Nunez has developed a promising reputation & healthy goalscoring habit during his three seasons in Spain and Portugal and is hotly-tipped to take over the leading role for his international side from former Liverpool striker Luis Suarez. Supporters are also excited to welcome Fabio Carvalho from Fulham, following a move that was anticipated throughout much of the previous campaign – if you’ll excuse the cliché, Harvey Elliott and January-signing Luis Diaz will also feel like brand new signings to many.
Sadio Mane, who will in future be regarded as modern-day legend of the club for his time on Merseyside under Jurgen Klopp, is no doubt the highest profile player to have left this summer, whilst – completing a trio of attacking departures – Divock Origi and Takumi Minamino also leave behind them many fond memories. Promising youngster, Neco Williams also heads to Nottingham Forest will the well-wihes of everyone associated with the club. Liverpool’s pre-season campaign took them to South East Asia (where they lost 4-0 to Manchester United and beat Crystal Palace 2-0) before central European meetings with Red Bull sides Leipzig (a 5-0 win) and Salzburg (a 1-0) defeat.
Though most consider the Community Shield as something of a pseudo-competitive match, the tempered levels of tension around it generally depend upon which teams meet – a meeting between Liverpool and Manchester City seems to represent a tantalising prologue to more important battles to come. Whilst City have somewhere-between dominated or edged-out Liverpool on the domestic side of this recent rivalry, Liverpool have enjoyed the bigger days out on the European stage – the cultures of the clubs may be like chalk & cheese, but they may both glance somewhat enviously at some of the achievements & occasions of the others during recent years. As light-touch as those representing & supporting the clubs may wish to paint this game, there’s no doubt that each would take some satisfaction of gaining a nose ahead in terms of momentum prior to the start of the league season next weekend.
