ARSENAL VS MANCHESTER CITY TIPS: 19/2 COMMUNITY SHIELD BET BUILDER
English football’s traditional curtain-raiser heads to Wales this weekend… or, rather, because of The Weeknd.
The Canadian R&B singer’s Wembley dates rule the national stadium out of staging this summer’s tie, meaning the Principality Stadium in Cardiff hosts its first Community Shield in 20 years.
Arsenal arrive for it as Premier League champions for the first time since 2003/04 – also in Cardiff – after a brutal, 63-game campaign that also produced a first Champions League final since 2006 and an EFL Cup final defeat to the very opponents standing in front of them on Sunday afternoon.
Manchester City, meanwhile, rock up as FA Cup holders and under new management for the first time in 10 years.
With the legendary Pep Guardiola gone the Citizens have turned to his former assistant – and treble-winning assistant at that – Enzo Maresca. The Italian takes charge of his first competitive City game in Cardiff against Mikel Arteta, unbeaten across six of these as a player, assistant coach and manager.
Recent history has a habit of being kind to new head coaches, given the last three of the last four permanent managers whose first game came in the Community Shield won it.
With both clubs shaking off World Cup legs and patchy pre-season form, here’s how we see things playing out in our 19/2 Arsenal vs Manchester City Bet Builder…
ARSENAL VS MANCHESTER CITY: ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW
- Kick-off time: 15:00 BST
- Match date: Sun 16th August
- Venue: Principality Stadium, Cardiff
- Competition: Community Shield
- How to watch: TNT Sports 1, TNT Sports Ultimate & HBO Max
- Match market: Click here
BetMGM’s 19/2 Community Shield Bet Builder
- Both teams to score
- Second half most goals
- Over 8.5 total corners
- Erling Haaland 3+ total shots
- Christos Tzolis to score or assist
Leg 1 – Both teams to score
Cardiff has form for witnessing goals at both ends.
Five of the six Community Shields staged here between 2001 and 2006 saw both teams to score land, a stronger hit rate even than the fixture’s already healthy 80% BTTS record over the last decade.
Arsenal’s much-changed defence – missing the likes of William Saliba and Jurrien Timber – is perhaps unlikely to replicate the miserly unit that conceded just 27 times last season.
City’s frontline, Erling Haaland included, rarely goes quiet for long regardless of who’s picking the team.
The Norwegian claimed his third Golden Boot in four seasons with 27 goals last term and City have both found the net and conceded in every warm-up fixture this summer.
Leg 2 – Second half most goals
Over 32% of Community Shield goals since 1999 have arrived after the 70th minute and both squads have to contend with a shortened close season squeezed by a World Cup, particularly for major stars who made the semi-finals or better this summer.
Expect fresher legs off the bench – Arsenal’s substitutes alone racked up a club-record 23 goal involvements last term – to tip the second period toward being the more decisive half.
That’s particularly likely with two management teams conceivably looking to use the occasion to run the rule over fringe or new players early before turning to senior firepower late on.
Leg 3 – Over 8.5 corners
Corners have proved the Community Shield’s quiet banker in recent years.
Seven of the last nine editions have cleared at least eight and Arsenal alone scored a record 19 Premier League goals from corners last season.
City, even potentially shorn of Guardiola’s blueprint, tend to average north of six per game domestically.
Stack the two sides’ set-piece appetite together and over 8.5 match corners looks a relatively modest ask rather than a stretch.
Leg 4 – Erling Haaland over 2.5 shots
A disclaimer here: Haaland’s record in curtain-raiser matches like this is at odds with his usual output.
The Norwegian – fresh off a seven-goal World Cup debut – has registered no normal-time goals on four such occasions since 2022, including a blank in the 2023 European Super Cup.
Haaland also recorded zero shots in the 2023 Community Shield… but his underlying output still should not be ignored. This is, after all, the man who reached 100 Premier League goals faster than any player in the competition's history.
With over four shots per 90 across his Premier League seasons, he comfortably clears the over 2.5 line we’ve set here in most weeks regardless of scoreline or opponent.
It makes sense to back the player and the volume, not focus on that curtain-raiser irregularity.
Leg 5 – Christos Tzolis to score or assist
For the final leg, we turn not to a familiar face but a new arrival.
Signed for around £34 million from Club Brugge – for whom he faced Arsenal in the Champions League last season – Greek winger Christos Tzolis brings solid goal contribution history to the party.
The 24-year-old managed 88 goal contributions in 108 Brugge appearances, capped by an outstanding farewell league campaign of 17 goals and 23 assists as the Blauw-Zwart won the league and Tzolis claimed Belgium’s footballer of the year.
He’s not arriving totally cold either: a spell at Norwich means English football holds no big mystery for the winger, though undoubtedly he arrives a more formidable package than when he left East Anglia in 2023.
Tzolis managed three goal contributions in three pre-season starts while a shot volume of 3.5 per 90 across his senior career to date suggests he won’t be a passenger if he starts again in Cardiff.
Two other names worth a mention here are Elliot Anderson in the fouls market and Max Dowman in the score or assist list.
The former conceded the third-most fouls in the Premier League last season and no England player fouled more at the World Cup, while 16-year-old Dowman has started all four of Arsenal’s warm-up games and won man of the match in one.
They’re tempting — but Tzolis’s minutes look the surer of the three.
BetMGM’s 19/2 Community Shield Bet Builder
- Both teams to score
- Second half most goals
- Over 8.5 total corners
- Erling Haaland 3+ total shots
- Christos Tzolis to score or assist
Odds correct at time of publication but subject to change
