Friday news Roundup 04/08: Football season returns & more

Friday 4 August 2023 by Jonathan Victoria  News

In football, this weekend marks the start of the new season for the EFL and essentially the Premier League, Ahsoka has had a popular character leaked and Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse has a release date.

All this is included in today’s news roundup.

Man City and Arsenal face off in Community Shield

The start of a new Premier League season is always marked by the Community Shield. While it isn’t seen as a major honour, it is still one that the teams competing will want to win to show a sign of what’s to come (except for Liverpool last year)(sorry Reds fans).

With Manchester City completing the treble (up the Saints for ensuring they didn’t do the quadruple), the team who came second in the league will be their opponent.

As if losing the league after being at the top for most of the 2022/23 campaign wasn’t enough, Arsenal will now have to show they are ready for the challenge once again this Sunday.

Arsenal is the second most successful club in the Community Shield, having won 16 titles in 23 appearances. Their last victory was against Liverpool in 2020 when they beat them on penalties. 

For City, their last win was in 2019, also against Liverpool and also on penalties. This will also be their third Community Shield appearance in a row, but they have failed to win in that stretch so far.

The Community Shield will take place at Wembley Stadium on Sunday 6th August with kickoff at 16:00.

Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse swinging to digital

The latest instalment in the Spider-Man: Spiderverse saga is coming to digital just next week.

Sony didn’t want to wait around, announcing that the latest Spidery animated flick, Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse, will be available to purchase digitally on 8th August.

For those waiting for a physical version, that will be released on 5th September.

The digital release will come with over 90 minutes of bonus content, including deleted scenes, filmmaker commentary, lyric videos, and lots more.

Across the Spiderverse was a big success critically and with fans, gaining high reviews and raking in over $500 million worldwide.

Continuing the story of a Spider-Man multiverse that was discovered in the first film, Across the Spiderverse introduces many more alternate Spider-Man characters and could at some point potentially meet up with the live-action Tom Holland Spider-Man.

New EFL season starts tonight

It truly is a happy weekend for English football fans, as it's not only the Community Shield on Sunday, but today also marks the return of the Championship, League One and League Two.

Kicking off the EFL season will be Sheffield Wednesday as they host newly relegated Southampton tonight at 8pm.

League One and League Two will return with all teams playing on Saturday, while the Championship will feature eight games tomorrow and three on Sunday as well, including the other two relegated sides Leeds and Leicester.

Ahsoka series has popular character leaked

**SPOILERS AHEAD FOR AHSOKA**

The latest Star Wars story coming to Disney+ will be Ahsoka, telling the tales of a fan-favourite Jedi Ahsoka Tano.

But ahead of its release on the streaming service, one piece of merchandise has seemingly spoiled a beloved character from the Star Wars universe.

**ONE MORE TIME, SPOILERS AHEAD**

According to SWNN, a piece of merchandise for the series was released on Amazon and in the description, it read:

“Transport yourself to a galaxy far, far away with cool new apparel featuring Ahsoka Tano, Sabine Wren, Anakin Skywalker, Mon Mothma, and all your favourite Star Wars Ahsoka characters!“

The big reveal there is that Anakin Skywalker will be in the series *shock and awe*.

Of course, for the fans who know their Star Wars lore, this shouldn’t be a massive surprise as Ahsoka was Anakin’s padawan. Plus, there were already older reports suggesting that Hayden Christensen, who played Anakin in the prequels, would be appearing in the series in some form.

It is not confirmed that he will be featured, although these do seem to it. But as for the capacity of his appearance, we do not yet know.

We will have to wait until Ahsoka starts streaming on Disney+, with the first episode slated to drop on 23rd August.