Arsenal vs Chelsea. Community Shield. 02/08/15, 15:00.

[Dein-machine]

I agree, because of who we are playing it is far from meaningless. The keystone for a title challenge this season will be proving we are capable of going toe to toe with Mourinhos Chelsea. There is no doubt he will take this game seriously, and ten years ago he used the same fixture to give them momentum going into the season.
With the exception of the 6-0 fiasco, Mourinho has beaten us by having his side as the more clinical and you know how they can defend in numbers, so the likelihood is that if they score first the game will be over.
However if we score first I think as long as we don't switch off that we can repel them....personally I don't think Giroud is the right player for a game like this, we don't need someone to hold up the ball, we need someone to stretch them with pace.

Giroud is not the right player for us in any game. Whether we're playing Chelsea or Bourmouth, the last two games of last year with pace up top we scored 8 & should have had 8 more. Players like Ozil, Ramsey & Santi thrive when they have pace to feed - Giroud kills us when he's on the pitch.

[Letters]

It's not meaningless, but it's not that important either - we won it last year and still got off to an awful start.
We do need to beat Chelsea - it's important psychologically - but I'm not sure how much bearing doing it in a pre-season friendly will have on anything.

[PGFC]

It's only meaningless if we win it, if we lose it will be like Christmas for the haters.

[Dein-machine]

I won't be too upset if we lose. We are playing the league champions who have a manager that wants to win every game & every trophy he goes in for. I'm not sure why we think we should win. Swap the managers around, give them the same teams & then I would be disappointed & suprised if we lost.

[GP]

It's only meaningless if we win it, if we lose it will be like Christmas for the haters.

Double true.

[fakeyank]

We need to win this, just so that the players actually believe they can beat a team put out by Mou. We lose the usual 1-0/2-0 and you know the players will start believing (like the manager) that their best bet is the 4th place trophy.

[Munchies]

2-1 to us

Surely we can beat Mourinho in a 'meaningless' game?

[Marc Overmars]

The man has never lost to Arsenal, so this won't be meaningless for Mourinho, therefore we should be doing everything we can to stick one on him.

[Blink 1nce Quince 2wice]

I don't think it's quite as significant as some seem to be suggesting and I'm not sure even winning it would be either. It is disregarded as a non competitive game for the most part. The press will still wheel out the usual if we win, they will just caveat it with 'competitive/serious/meaningful game'.

That said, of course, I still want us to stick it to that arsewipe and his odious band of mugs, but if we don't go into the season with a squad likely to be top scorers I don't really fancy us for the title.

[fakeyank]

Since our last win against the cunts (5-3), Chelsea has outscored us 14-1. That is beyond pathetic and shameful. If I were AW, I'd be super ashamed of that record.