No rest for the successful as new English season starts in the same month the last one finished

The new English season i s starting in the same month the last one finished.

For Arsenal, in particular, the turnaround has been rapid.

In the final domestic match of the pandemic- prolonged 2019- 20 campaign, Arsenal won the FA Cup by beating Chelsea 2- 1 at an empty Wembley on 1 August.

And it’s at the same stadium – still without spectators – where Arsenal’s players return only four weeks later to play Liverpool in the Community Shield, the traditional curtainraiser of the season between the winners of the Premier League and FA Cup.

“We are ready to go,” Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta said. “We have no choice.” Saying it is “not an ideal moment to play this final” is quite the understatement by Arteta, pictured, who reported on Thursday that Arsenal have had two training sessions so far in what he called a “mini pre- season”.

For the Spanish coach, it is just another example of how his team – and the rest of the Premier League – are heading into the unknown in an upcoming season that’s being squeezed by a month because of the extension of last season f ol l owing outbreak.

“The Covid period was slow, and then full gas,” said Arteta, whose positive coronavirus test led to the Premier League being suspended in March. “You could see the injury rates and everything went crazy up. So we don’t know [ what’s going to happen this season].

“We are going to protect the players as much as possible and give them everything we can from the science and physical point of view to get them in

t he coronavirus the best condition as possible.”

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp said he ideally would have liked six weeks to prepare for the new season.

Instead, i t i s a fourweek preseason f or the English champions that is still getting interrupted by an international break for Nations League qualifiers.

“I’ll be very surprised if this is the best game we’ll play this season,” Klopp said. “Nobody i s moaning,” he a dded i n reference to the global situation regarding the pandemic, “because we’re just happy we can play at all.”

The Liverp o ol - Arsenal game will be preceded a t Wembley by t he Women’s C o mmunit y Shield between Manchester City and Chelsea.

It’s the first time the men’s and women’s games have been held back- to- back, and the first time the women’s game is to be staged at Wembley.