Only Manchester United have lifted the Community Shield more often than Arsenal, whose 2026 success was their 18th in the competition. It was another summer moment that hinted at ambition, but the league record that followed those wins has not always matched the occasion.<\/p>\n
Since the Premier League began, Arsenal have collected nine Community Shield victories, and their seasons afterward have ranged from title challenges to frustration. The latest triumph came with Mikel Arteta\u2019s side still carrying a sense of control and certainty that rivals may not fully share. Yet history shows that a strong afternoon at the season\u2019s unofficial curtain-raiser has not guaranteed smooth progress once the league campaign begins.<\/p>\n
Their first Premier League-era Shield win was a 3-0 defeat of Manchester United. Arsenal were then reigning champions, though not by a commanding margin, and they ended that league season one point behind United after a costly finish that included a penultimate-day loss at Leeds United. A slow start to the defence, with four draws in five and only three wins from eight, left them chasing.<\/p>\n
The following year brought another Shield victory over United, this time 2-1, and Thierry Henry\u2019s arrival from Juventus gave Arsenal extra edge. He finished his debut season with 26 goals in all competitions and 17 in the league, yet United still claimed the title with 91 points. Arsenal\u2019s strong late run was not enough to close the gap.<\/p>\n
There were more reminders in the years that followed. Arsenal lost a growing advantage in 2003-04, then endured the end of the Invincibles run and watched Chelsea set a new standard in 2004-05. Much later, a 3-0 Shield win over Man City in 2014 was followed by a third-place finish, while 2017-18 became Ars\u00e8ne Wenger\u2019s final season and brought only 63 points.<\/p>\n
More recently, Arteta\u2019s side used a Shield win over Liverpool to steady themselves in 2020-21, before recovering from a poor spell to finish eighth. By 2022-23, they were again pushing hard near the top, and the draft points to a side once more capable of running City close.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arsenal\u2019s Shield wins have often been followed by title pressure, but not always by league success.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18565,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,2022,172],"tags":[1162,59,182],"class_list":["post-18566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-community-shield","category-epl","tag-analytics","tag-featured","tag-transfers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18566\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}