Everyone ready for the season to start? Well, you best be, because it’s all kicking off today at Wembley Stadium.
FA Community Shield / Matchday 1
Wembley / 07.08.2021
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- K. Iheanacho(89' PEN)
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Updated 07/08/2021 at 18:29 GMT
Edozie is quite a talent, according to Pep Guardiola, who said this of the City starlet earlier in pre-season: "He's an incredible young player, good pace. Be patient with him. With minutes they play good and this is important."
28'
Oh dear! A sight of goal for Man City youngster Samuel Edozie as Gundogan picks him out on an angle, but he snatches at the shot and it’s well, well wide.
26'
Good again from Vardy as he looks to burst in behind the Man City defence, but Ake does well to sweep across and deny the forward.
25'
Vardy denied! The Leicester striker seizes on a loose ball in the middle of a penalty-box scramble and pokes a shot towards goal, but Steffen makes a reaction save and Man City scramble the loose ball away.
23'
Tielemans is involved as Leicester get the ball into the box, but Perez’s shot is too close to the keeper.
20'
It might be goalless, but this is a belter. End-to-end with a really high tempo.
18'
City break and it’s Mahrez again, cutting in onto his left. It’s a tale that’s been told time and again, but this time his attempted shot across the keeper takes a deflection over the bar.
14'
City try a clever corner routine as Gundogan floats a deep set-piece out to Mahrez on the far side. But the wide man gets under his effort a tad and it flies over the bar.
13'
Man City interestingly a sitting quite deep in this game, relatively anyway. It’s hard to tell at this stage whether it’s a purposeful move to open up space in midfield and reduce the gaps for Vardy to run into, or whether it’s Leicester who are forcing their opponents to sit back.
There’s a Grealish-shaped shadow looming over this game, and even the opposition manager has had his say.
9'
City almost break Leicester open, but Gundogan’s final flicked pass doesn’t quite come off and the ball trickles through to Schmeichel.
7'
Gundogan whips in a peach of a free-kick, curling towards the top corner, but Schmeichel reads it well and tips the ball over the bar with a save that looked rather more spectacular than it perhaps needed to be.
5'
City take a huge risk trying to work the ball out from the back, but it pays off and they almost open Leicester up. I’ve missed this, the standard of football is really so high.
3'
It’s been a surprisingly high-tempo start given the pre-season-y nature of the match. Leicester in particular have come out all guns blazing.
1st Half
1'
Leicester, wearing their usual blue and white, get the game underway. Man City are in their away kit, which seems to be a sort of white and teal number, it's quite fetching to be honest with you.
So here we go. The curtain is about to raise on the 2021/22 season... and that's the first big cliche of the campaign already from me. Plenty more to come.
It’s not unfair to say that Leicester fans are making slightly more of a day of this than the Man City supporters, with an absolute sea of the darker blue shirts and flags packing out one end of a limited-capacity Wembley this evening.
Leicester aren’t at absolute full strength either, but name a side who can certainly cause City plenty of problems. Here’s Brendan Rodgers, speaking to broadcasters ITV:
The guys who haven’t been involved over the course of pre-season, the likes of Papy, Jonny, and James Justin. James Justin is coming along very well but of course is still a few months away. Timothy Castagne trained for the first time with the squad which is great news for us. He’s physically ready and in a good place but he had his mask on today and trained with the squad, but won’t be available for the game. Hopefully, with confidence in training, he won’t be too far away.
There’s also no Phil Foden or Kevin de Bruyne in the Man City side today, with the pair out for some time with injuries picked up on international duty.