Five predictions for the season ahead based on Man City v Chelsea: Morata’s struggles set to continue, City to remain dominant

Manchester City and Chelsea put on a show today for the season’s opener at Wembley, as Pep Guardiola’s side ran out 2-0 winners to claim the 2018 Community Shield. 

Two fine strikes from Sergio Aguero, the first being his 200th for the club, proved enough for City in the end, as they saw out the match to win their third piece of silverware since the end of February.

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However, it wasn’t just the goals that gave us an influence of how these two sides might get on this season, but their overall play as well.

City controlled the game from start finish, whilst Maurizio Sarri’s side struggled to create good chances throughout the 90 minutes.

So following this, we’ve made five predictions about the season ahead following City’s win over the Blues at Wembley today.

Alvaro Morata is set to struggle again

Morata’s time at Stamford Bridge hasn’t gone the way that a fair few wold’ve expected.

The Spaniard barely reached double figures for goals in all competitions last season, and if today’s showing is anything to go by, it doesn’t look like he’s going to be scoring much more than that this time round.

The former Real Madrid man was often found isolated up top for Sarri’s side, and when the ball did come his way, he failed to do anything with it.

It seems as if Morata is trying different ways to spark his Chelsea career into life, as he dropped the supposedly cursed No.9 shirt this summer in favour of No.29.

It’s horrible seeing a player as good as Morata struggle with simple things, however we just can’t see him turning his Blues career around this year, especially now seeing as he could be set to have both Olivier Giroud and Michy Batshuayi to compete with.

Chelsea are going to take time to adapt

Although the west London side’s play style looked very different to the way they played under Antonio Conte, Chelsea somewhat struggled to replicate the football we saw Sarri oversee at Napoli.

The Blues constantly tried to play out from the back no matter the scenario, with City often catching them in possession time and time again.

Obviously, the reason as to why Chelsea aren’t playing like prime Napoli just yet is that you can’t teach Sarri’s convoluted system in just the few weeks he’s been at the club.

Chelsea aren’t going to be strutting around, playing free-flowing football from game one in the Premier League this season, and it’s almost definitely going to take them a month or two to be familiar with what Sarri is asking them to do.

This may see the Blues drop points towards the start of their campaign, a factor that could end up paying dividends come the end of the season.

Sergio Aguero for the Golden Boot

Having bagged his 200th and 201st goals in City colours this afternoon, Aguero showed everyone that he’s still got that goalscoring touch firmly in his locker.

The Argentine superstar managed to score 21 times in the league last year despite only managing 25 appearances, a ratio that would’ve definitely seen him run Salah close had he played every game.

Although Aguero may be benched for a few games due to the brilliance of Gabriel Jesus being hard to ignore, he showed today that he doesn’t need five or six chances to score like Morata does.

He’s going to have to beat the likes of Mo Salah, Harry Kane and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang to claim the Golden Boot award come May.

However, if today’s performance is anything to go by, Aguero’s certainly still capable of banging in the goals for Guardiola’s team, something that could easily see him be the Premier League top goalscorer come the end of the season.

City are going to dominate once again

After managing 100 points as well as 106 goals in the league last season, it’s going to be hard for Guardiola’s Man City to do better than they did in the 2017/18 campaign.

The Citizens looked absolutely unstoppable at times last year, as they ended up romping to their third ever Premier League title by 19 points, thrashing the likes of Arsenal and Liverpool in the process.

Following the sole addition of Riyad Mahrez to their squad this summer, and no notable departures, it’s looking hard to look past another blistering season from City this time round, especially if their performance today is anything to go off.

The reigning champions absolutely wiped the floor with their opponents in north London today, with the Blues looking hopeless in their attempts to stop City hammering efforts at their goal.

Albeit Chelsea were missing players like Eden Hazard and N’Golo Kante, City still showed them who’s boss today, something that could be a recurring theme as the season goes on.

Hudson-Odoi to take starring role under Sarri

If there was one positive to take away from Chelsea’s performance today, it would have to be the display of one Callum Hudson-Odoi.

The England youngster looked the most threatening player on the pitch for the Blues this afternoon, with his want to constantly get at Kyle Walker down Chelsea’s left hand-side being one of the most encouraging signs for Chelsea fans.

The 17-year-old only managed an hour on the Wembley turf this afternoon, however in that time, he proved that he could be a player that may come in very hand for Sarri this season.

With stars such as Pedro and Willian coming off the back of World Cup campaigns, they may find themselves tired towards the end of the year having not had a proper rest this summer.

Which, in turn, could see Hudson-Odoi claim a fair few starts under his belt for the west London side this season, something that will surely be a big boost for the player’s development.

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