.Arsenal and Liverpool are ready to get the 2020/21 English football season underway this afternoon
Depending on who you speak to, the Community Shield is anything from an underrated curtain-raiser for the Premier League to an overblown friendly that nobody really cares about winning
But no matter which side of the debate you’re championing, a football match is a football match and we can’t help getting excited
about something that signals the beginning of a new season
Arsenal vs Liverpool
Naturally, Liverpool come into the fixture at Wembley Stadium as massive favourites having won their inaugural Premier League title with 99 points, which is the second highest total ever
And their record against the Gunners is something to be feared, losing just one game to the north London club since their 4-1 defeat at the Emirates Stadium back in 2015
But if there’s any cause for optimism in Mikel Arteta’s camp then it’s the fact that anomalous victory against Liverpool actually came in their most recent meeting just one month ago
Tight game at Wembley
Arsenal became just the third team to defeat Liverpool in the Premier League last season with goals from Alexandre Lacazette and Reiss Nelson securing an upset victory in the capital
Lest we forget, too, that Arsenal have a remarkable record under the Wembley arch having won four FA Cup titles in six years and bagged three Community Shield trophies to boot
As a result, the season opener is being billed as quite a tight affair, but you wouldn’t have thought so if you stumbled across the FA Cup’s official Twitter account on Friday evening
It’s become customary ahead of big games for fans and pundits alike to choose combined XI’s comprised of the two teams and that’s exactly what the FA Cup proposed this week