After starting 1-1 Saturday, Arsenal defeated Liverpool 5-4 on penalties to earn the Community Shield. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s and Takumi Minamino’s goals exited the match equal until 93 minutes and automatically penalized the teams. Rhian Brewster, a young player from Liverpool was the only one who avoided a goal for his attempt to reach the crossbar and sending Jurgen Klopp to go for Georginio wijnaldum after 92 minutes.
It seems like Arsenal had secured the Shield for the last three years, and Liverpool seemed to be opening the scoring by Virgil van Dijk after 7 minutes on a really frustrating day. The flag suddenly went up, though. Andy Robertson was playing at the cross-section, which revealed that Van Dijk was ahead of the backline from Arsenal. While Liverpool had 60% of ownership in the opening stages, in the first 12 minutes, the back of the net was found by Arsenal through Aubameyang.
Bukayo Saka, who pushed it to Aubameyang, brought the ball up the field to push to the left foot. Despite the time and room of the defense against Liverpool, Gabon’s international strike arrived right in the lower corner. In honor of actor Chadwick Boseman who died of cancer on Friday, Aubameyang honored his goal with the famous Black Panther salute. Arsenal managed to make tremendous progress with Alisson to drive Eddie Nketiah’s shot across the boundary of the post for 20 minutes.
At the end of the match, Liverpool ruled, but could not hit the net with many shots wide or over Emiliano Martinez’s goal in a row. Roberto Firmino has also repeated Aubameyang’s first-half score in 51 minutes, with eight goals at 10 games against Arsenal but his attempts have been slipping far and low. It was Sadio Mane’s turn to drag Rob Holding forward and drive Martinez away from his target a few minutes later.
Brave Martinez goalkeepers saw the ball doused and Liverpool had another opportunity. The fighting spirit of Liverpool compensated off when the ball bounced out to hit Minamino, who scored his first Liverpool goal at 73 minutes. Arsenal handball appeals Mohamed Salah drop on deaf ears, although there were no visible indications of poor playing in most VAR replays. In the clearly dull London hand, neither team could find a target, and the match went straight to penalties in the Community Shield pattern.
