Arsenal
Football Club ended their pre-season campaign with a comfortable 3-0 victory
over the Premier League champions Manchester City to win the England Community
Shield trophy yesterday evening.
Two
first-half goals from Santiago Cazorla and Aaron Ramsey placed Arsene Wenger’s
side on the lead before Olivier Giroud added the third and last goal of the
match in the 61st minute to seal an easy win for the North Londoners
at Wembley Stadium, England.
The
Community Shield, also called Charity Cup, aims at raising funds to be donated
to children’s homes and other needy groups and individuals. It features the
previous season’s Premier League and FA Cup winners and is usually played a few
days before the start of the next season.
Arsenal
lifted the trophy some moments before their captain, Thomas Vermaelen,
completed a move to Spanish side Barcelona at an undisclosed fee believed to be
around £15 million. Manchester City’s loss came as a tragedy, especially to their
midfielder Samir Nasri who branded Arsenal fans’ continued criticism ‘stupid’
during a pre-match interview ahead of the clash with his former club. The
27-year old French had earlier announced his retirement from international
football.
Elsewhere,
Liverpool concluded their pre-season matches with a heavy 4-0 win against
Germany club Borussia Dortmund, courtesy of goals from Daniel Sturridge, Lovren
(debutant), Philippe Countinho and Jordan Henderson.
In
the Kenya Premier League, Chemelil Sugar held Tusker FC to a barren draw to
earn Gor Mahia hopeful advantage of returning to the top of the league table,
with the latter still having two matches in hand. After 21 games Tusker are the
current league leaders with 39 points, just one point ahead of second-placed
Gor Mahia who have played 19.
