LONDON, England (SportingAlert) — Manchester City and Arsenal hunt their first piece of silverware this season when they clash in the FA Community Shield at Wembley Stadium on Sunday.
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Both teams have been busy adding to their respective squad this summer and managers Arsene Wenger and Manuel Pellegrini will be hoping to take one final look at their players before the start of the new English Premier League season.
At the same time though, Wenger and Pellegrini have also revealed that several key players will not feature in the contest.
Pellegrini says that defender and skipper Vincent Kompany, fellow defenders Martin Demichelis, Pablo Zabaleta, Bacary Sagna, as well as midfielder Fernandinho and striker Sergio Aguero, who all returned last week, are not be fit enough to face Arsenal.
Former Chelsea midfielder Frank Lampard, who is on loan from his MLS side, owned by Manchester City, is also sitting out the game.
“All the players that have arrived on Monday will not be ready to play on Sunday,” Pellegrini said on www.mcfc.com.
“These players have had a special pre-season for this week and it will continue into next week.
“Lampard is not ready to play. We will see if he is ready to play in the Premier League.
“For the moment, the squad has no injury problems – only Alvaro Negredo. He is recovering well but he has at least two or three months that he will not play.
“He is at Carrington, working on different things so there is no problem.”
Wengers says his World Cup winners, which include Mesut Ozil and Lukas Podolski and Per Mertesacker, will not feature, but new signing Alexis Sanchez is all set to be the main forward, following his transfer from Barcelona earlier this summer.
Asked if his German stars would play, Wenger said on Arsenal.com: “You have the choice – you get them back very quickly and you lose them in October, or you give them a needed rest to build them up again.
“They have an individual programme that they follow so they could be very quick.”
Forwards Joel Campbell and Yaya Sanogo could both start the game.
