Theo Walcott says the Arsenal squad want to “put a message out to the Premier League” at this weekend’s Community Shield.
Arsène Wenger’s side go into Sunday’s match with Chelsea as holders of the trophy, having beaten Manchester City 3-0 last season.
“It’s going to be very tight and I think both squads have improved,” Walcott told Arsenal Player.
"It’s important to actually put out a message to the Premier League that we’re ready this year"
“Chelsea will grow as well but I think the way that we ended the season, just the whole culture around the club now and everything about it, there’s just something special that will happen this year.
“Some people will think it’s just another pre-season game but us players want to go out and win every game we can.
"A lot of kids dream of playing at Wembley so you’ve always got to take it in, put 100 per cent in and I will, like all my team-mates will do too. We won’t want to let our fans down because they’re going to make the game special for us, I’m sure.
“It’s important to actually put out a message to the Premier League that we’re ready this year, against the title champions. We did it last year against Manchester City so there’s no reason we can’t do it again.”
Jack Wilshere
Copyright 2024 The Arsenal Football Club Limited. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source.
