Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola congratulated Arsenal on their Community Shield success as he took the positives from his side's display at the Wembley Stadium.
The Premier League champions were unable to record a nine-game winning streak against Mikel Arteta's Gunners as the north London side went on to lift the Community Shield on Sunday evening.
Arsenal secured a 4-1 victory on penalties after a 1-1 draw, thanks to Leandro Trossard's late deflected goal which cancelled out Cole Palmer's wonder goal in the 77th minute.
The winning spot-kicks were taken by Martin Odegaard, Trossard, Bukayo Saka, and Fabio Vieira. It was a remarkable turnaround for Arsenal, who had the upper hand in the first half but failed to capitalise on their chances.
“My first words, congratulations to Arsenal for winning the Community Shield trophy,” Guardiola said as Mancity.com quoted.
“We were close. We were good for 25-30 minutes, in the last 15 or 20 minutes of the first half they were better. They had two chances and Stefan did well.
“But second half we were much, much better. We played a really good second half. Our energy from the new players especially players in one-on-one situations, players like Phil, Kevin and Cole.
“We were close but at the end, we couldn't do it and their penalty takers were better than us.”
Guardiola revealed how impressed he was with the energy levels of his City side, who are kicking off the new Premier League campaign in five days against Vincent Kompany’s newly promoted Burnley at Turf Moor.
“The team behaved unbelievably,” the Spaniard added. “In the second half, the last minutes, attacking players were there and they pushed a lot and it’s normal.
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“We are not the NBA that when you finish you have three months off to recover. Not here, especially here. In good seasons or bad seasons, it didn’t happen.
“You have to adapt and that’s why I’m surprised how good we behaved. We faced an extraordinary team. It happened last season and it happened again.
“We were close and we are a little bit disappointed with the final result but it’s football.
“If you can’t win you can bring minutes to the players and I’m thinking of Friday when we are going to Burnley to play.”
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