Sport – Gaza Post
Salah and Núñez seal Community Shield glory
Liverpool’s new season will be the happier as Jürgen Klopp appear as slick team ready for serious combat.
Pep Guardiola may not care about losing the first Community Shield that staged in July but concerns about how Erling Haaland was near-anonymous throughout.
The No 9’s one moment came when igniting the move that led to Julian Álvarez’s equalizer and he ended with the type of point-blank glaring miss.
Salah was the star of the opening half, with a fizzing presence along the right who would create Trent Alexander-Arnold’s opener.
Selling a dummies and shooting was Egyptians opening gambit. The City had a warning but they failed to heed as mostly the No 11 was allowed to receive passes and wreak havoc.
Guardiola offloaded a first rollicking of the term when seven minutes had gone. João Cancelo was the bull’s eye to go back towards the goal instead of finding Jack Grealish with an escape ball up the left.
City has been swamped but when Kevin De Bruyne forced a corner on the left and the same player took the short delivery and curled in a cross Nathan Aké could threaten Adrián’s goal, despite he also failed to connect.
Aké was Guardiola’s surprise selection for the day as the Dutchman almost sold to Chelsea was preferred to John Stones.
Aké. he was part of a rearguard that struggled to stymie Liverpool. An instance of Salah’s freedom came when he controlled and passed the ball inside to Alexander-Arnold. The right-back, seeing Andy Robertson move towards the far post, executed a chip to the Scot who should have finished.
when Alexander-Arnold struck there was scant surprise. Yet again Salah was found – this time by Thiago Alcãntara. The right-back awaited to his left: Salah tapped the ball to him and a bending shot beat Ederson via Aké’s forehead.
The City had De Bruyne running in on to Riyad Mahrez’s threaded pass but the Belgian missed. Haaland, was a non-factor, limited to the odd touch and zero chances. At the end, he had two chances. After bundling Robertson aside, he made Adrián save but then appeared awkwardly one-footed when mis-hitting a cross when the angle was made for his right.
City rallied as the interval arriving, closing the 45 minutes how they would want: controlling ball and the place near Liverpool’s goal. No equalizer came – a Mahrez pea-roller that was simple for Adrián.
During the teams were named Haaland which meant that Kalvin Phillips and Álvarez were replacements, as were Klopp’s new men – Darwin Núñez and Fábio Carvalho.
If each manager made no changes for the second half, Liverpool would threat. A free-kick claimed on the left Robertson dropped the ball into City’s area before Aké, leaping, headed clear. Next the menacing Alexander-Arnold marauded toward Ederson , Robertson crashed in a cross, and Jordan Henderson looked to nip in along the right before turning back into traffic.
Guardiola made two switches where Grealish and Mahrez were linked, and Phil Foden and Alvarez entered. At this juncture, Roberto Firmino was also sacrificed – by Klopp – for Nunez, so each of the first contenders now had a new top scorer.
How consistent City have been with Haaland in their ranks is what came as a surprise: and on this evidence, Guardiola lost due to the Norwegian’s reluctance to retreat from the front.
Until that equalizer a cross was shot by Foden at Adrián and when the striker challenged the goalkeeper, the ball slipped to Alvarez whose shot was stopped – after a lengthy offside check.
Craig Pawson was sent to the field steward and it was ruled that Ruben Dias handled Nunez’s header.
In the end, Salah calmly scored the penalty before Nunez sealed the victory in stoppage time.
