After the FA released the key dates for matches in the 2015/16 season, the Blues’ fans wondered if their team might run into trouble. After Chelsea won the 2014 Barclays Premier League title, the team is now set to play the 2015 FA Cup winner (Arsenal) at Wembley. The date and time for that match was set by the FA for Sunday, August 2.That creates a few questions for Chelsea about the team’s preseason, falling as it does between two matches Chelsea had already announced.
Jose Mourinho’s team is scheduled to play against FC Barcelona on July 29 in Washington DC, and then they will host Fiorentina at their Stamford Bridge stadium on August 5. The most likely outcome is that Chelsea fans with Community Shield tickets (available on Ticketbis.net) won’t see the club’s established stars making an extended outing. The start of the Premier League has been scheduled for August 8, though it hasn’t been announced when Chelsea will hit the field that weekend. Depending on the scheduling of that game, fans can expect to see a lot of reserve and youth involvement for the match against Fiorentina, as with the Blues’ match with Barca.
Fortunately for the Blues, they have a large number of fringe players that will be around during the preseason, so it shouldn’t be too difficult for Mourinho to make sure no players get overworked before the kickoff of the new season. Questions of overwork notwithstanding — the Community Shield match will nevertheless likely be an exciting one, or at least it became that way after Arsenal managed to defeat Aston Villa 4-0 to keep the FA Cup and as a result earned themselves a place in the Community Shield match against Chelsea. The victory against Villa was one of Arsenal’s best matches this season, helped partially by the way Tim Sherwood brought out a particularly aggressive high line which ended up playing right into the hands of the Gunners.
While the Community Shield match is technically a friendly outing, Jose Mourinho will certainly be none too interested in losing it to a London rival. Arsene Wenger, too, will be desperate to achieve anything like a success against Chelsea too. That means the Community Shield match ought to end up a fun way of kicking off the new season. The Blues will actually be at Wembley twice that weekend, as the FA Women’s Cup Final will take place at the stadium between Chelsea and the Notts County Ladies on August 1. It’s the first time the Women’s Cup will take place there.
The FA Cup Extra-Preliminary round will kick off on August 15, while the FA Cup Third Round weekend has been scheduled for January 9, 2016 and the Semi-Finals for 23/24 April 2016. For fans with suitable televisions, the Community Shield match will be the first broadcast in 4K quality on BT Sport Ultra HD, Europe’s first 4K channel. The match will be free to subscribers of BT TV. The channel will be showing a number of FA Cup, Aviva Premiership rugby, and UEFA Champions League matches in addition to the Community Shield. BT will also be launching a 4K-compatible set-top box, though viewers still must have a 4K-compatible television.