Thoughts on the Community Shield

I caught most of the Community Shield today save the occasional trip downstairs to switch out the laundry. Here are five thoughts.

1. What Depth: With all the discussion over United's loss of Ronaldo and Carlos Tevez many people seemed to forget about the incredible depth of the squad. They boast arguably the best center back combo in the world. With the emergence of Darron Gibson the team can now realistically pick from a group of ten midfielders (Carrick, Park, Scholes, Giggs, Fletcher, Nani, Valencia, Anderson, Hargreaves). Missing Tevez up front? You have Rooney, Berbatov, Owen, Macheda and even Danny Welbeck.

2. Chelsea and United will be 1-2: I'm still leaning towards Chelsea to win the Premier League but I wouldn't be surprised one bit if Sir Alex and the crew won yet another title. Contrary to some pundits, there's no way they'll finish out of the Champions League spot. As far as Chelsea they look like a well oiled machine and made a great pickup in Zhirkov.

3. Foster looked awful shaky: For a goaltender pushed by Ferguson to be England's future #1 Foster looked awful shaky on the two Chelsea goals and his overall ball-handling/kicking was supbar. With Edwin Van Der Sar out for a period of time the pressure will be on Foster. Is he up to it?

4. Petr Cech saved the match for Chelsea in the first half: Beyond the Nani goal which he arguably could have played better, Cech kept Chelsea in the match with some sterling first half saves, one in particular after a nice give and go gave Berbatov a unmarked shot on goal. He then proved his worth once again in the penalty shootout.

5. Michael Ballack's act is wearing thin: I think I'm not alone in the fact that I'm tired of Ballack and would like to see him take his arse back to the Bundesliga. Whether it's him losing his mind after the Barcelona semifinal or his antics yesterday I've had my fill of Ballack. Five minutes before dropping the elbow on Evra Ballack goes down in a heap pretending that Evra stepped on his ribcage, stopping a United attack, only to bounce back up ten seconds later. Five minutes later he commits a clear foul on Evra. As far as the referee, Chris Foy, it was a pretty obvious call. If it was truly a game of consequence the controversy would have been much larger. Chelsea didn't even have possession at the time and it took over 20 seconds for them to get down the field and score, all with Evra on the ground. It would have been nice for a Chelsea player, who clearly had to see Evra on the ground (Lampard), to wack the ball out and realize it was a charity match.

Even with the controversy it was an entertaining and well played match. From a neutral point of view you had to be impressed with both clubs. United clearly looked dominant in the first half with strong play from Nani, Darren Fletcher, etc. Chelsea roared back in the second half. Good play from the two clubs that will fight for the top spot this season.