Arsenal...3 Manchester Untied...1: The Community Shield is always more of a puzzle than a prize. It offers a teasing view of two leading clubs and dares everyone to predict the season ahead. While Alex Ferguson is too wise to peer into that distant future, he must be looking uneasily at the next few weeks at least.

The Manchester United manager might have wished he had not belittled Arsenal's unbeaten run to the Premiership title with the claim that it was not real "championship form" since it included a dozen draws. There were no equivocal traits in the Highbury side's display at the Millennium Stadium yesterday and this could easily have turned into a rout.

But United are not automatically consigned to the ranks of also-rans. Ferguson knows that Rio Ferdinand, Gabriel Heinze, Cristiano Ronaldo, Louis Saha, Wes Brown and Ruud van Nistelrooy will all be back over the next month or two, but there will only be qualified reassurance in that if the club sustains serious damage in the meantime.

Worse still, United are under particular pressure to be in good form immediately, and this afternoon in Cardiff was the ante-room to their Champions League qualifier in Bucharest on Wednesday. If the side continues to be so full of gaps in defence and short of flair in attack that tie could even be problematic. And Ferguson admitted as much.

"This game on Wednesday is a killer for us in terms of giving players enough rest," said the Old Trafford boss. "You take Silvestre, the Nevilles, they have only had five days training so the preparation is not good.

"Add to that we will not have Saha, who has a knee injury, and Wes Brown and it's not ideal. In terms of preparation for a season this is probably the worst I can remember. At least we have no new injuries from today. The last half an hour today was just about getting through the game without getting any more injuries."

These considerations were ironic, considering that most of the pre-match talk was of the devastation to be wreaked upon Arsenal if they cannot stop Patrick Vieira from leaving for Real Madrid. As the match unfolded, without their injured captain, Arsene Wenger seemed to be showing off the promise in this squad.

The evidence was almost too neat to be trusted. So confident, so sensitive to weight and angle of pass was Cesc Fabregas that he could have been hailed as an ideal replacement for Vieira - until you wrenched your attention from his performance and applied it to his age. The Spaniard is 17 and appearances by him still have to be carefully calibrated. Playing time is also a delicate issue for another wonderful contributor to this game, but only because he is more than twice the age of Fabregas.

Dennis Bergkamp, the instigator of Arsenal's second goal, was vigorous as well as astute in probing the space behind United's back four.

Bergkamp would have scored had he not embarrassed himself, immediately after making a fool of John O'Shea, when he fell over in the 27th minute following a return pass from Thierry Henry to put him clear. Given the calibre of this showing, no one in United's ranks would have dared to sneer lest it provoked the Dutchman.

With Bergkamp regularly involved, the first half was a flurry of Arsenal cut-backs that were not quite converted and a highly speculative claim for a penalty when Henry received the faintest touch from Mikael Silvestre after Fabregas had set him galloping away down the left.

There was just one delectable bit of work from United in that period, when Paul Scholes scooped the ball through to Ryan Giggs, only for Pascal Cygan to contrive a recovery tackle as a goal looked inevitable. That was an extremely rare episode of frustration for United.

For the most part they can only have dreaded receiving their just deserts, and the menace from Arsenal was varied. Jose Antonio Reyes, living up to the claim that he has now settled at Highbury, offered a similar magnitude of threat in this game as Henry himself.

It was erratic of him to hit the side netting in the 48th minute, but the manner in which he ran round Silvestre and the goalkeeper, Tim Howard, before doing so was more pertinent to his long-term prospects at Highbury.

Within moments, he had sprung the off-side trap to square for Gilberto to find the net. It is no more reasonable to envisage the Brazilian as an in-house successor to Vieira than it is Fabregas, but there was a hint of adventure in some of Gilberto's work that showed he can offer more than mere competence.

He was to stride boldly when Arsenal needed to re-establish the lead. United's equaliser had come, after 55 minutes, when Cygan put Kolo Toure in trouble by chesting the ball down to him and the Ivory Coast player hit his clearance against Alan Smith. With smooth opportunism, Ferguson's new centre forward planted a half-volley in the net.

"He took his goal well, I'm very pleased for the lad," said Ferguson. "Defenders don't enjoy playing against him, he's very mobile and busy, which are great attributes for a centre forward."

It was, though, the first and last favourable omen for United. Four minutes later Bergkamp picked out Gilberto on the left of the box and, with United slow to hamper him, the Brazilian rolled a cross that, after a faint contact from Jermaine Pennant, was converted with aplomb by Reyes.

The sense of a collapsing United was corroborated by the concluding goal. It was a misfortune that Ashley Cole's intended pass should bounce off Silvestre and run past Howard, but the full-back had only been in the penalty area because Gary Neville and the wretched David Bellion collided when they had tried to block him.

United, for the moment, are like a medical dictionary: to observe the club is to see a full list of contemporary football ailments. Some men are injured, a couple are on international duties and the occasional person here, such as Gary Neville, is experiencing the after-shock of a major international tournament.

It may not last, but Arsenal were a contrasting illustration of all that can go right for a manager.

Even the great Vieira should find it hard to tear himself away.

ARSENAL: Lehmann, Lauren, Toure, Cygan, Cole, Pennant, Silva, Fabregas Soler (Svard 87), Reyes (Hoyte 80), Bergkamp (Aliadiere 61), Henry (van Persie 45), Aliadiere (Clichy 69). Subs Not Used: Senderos, Almunia. Booked: Cole. Goals: Silva 49, Reyes 59, Silvestre 79 og.

MANCHESTER UNITED: Howard, Gary Neville, O'Shea (Spector 82), Silvestre, Fortune (Phil Neville 51), Bellion, Keane (Fletcher 51), Djemba-Djemba, Giggs (Forlan 51), Scholes (Richardson 74), Smith (Eagles 73). Subs Not Used: Carroll. Booked: Phil Neville, Djemba-Djemba. Goals: Smith 55.

Referee: M Dean (Wirral).