Another pre-season catch-up as Steve Bruce charms the Black Cats faithful with a emphatic win. Roberto Martinez gets de-railed at Crewe and Big Sam locks horns with an Italian giant and comes away with a draw – if you ignore the farcical penalty shoot-out that is…

Goals from Kieran Richardson, Paul McShane and Roy O’Donovan, together with an own goal, were enough for Steve Bruce to begin his reign as Sunderland boss with a win at Darlington.

Bruce put out a fairly strong eleven, although he was without the injured Kenwyne Jones and Craig Gordon, while Fraizer Campbell and Paulo da Silva were not included in the squad. Interestingly, he went with a 4-5-1, with David Healy leading the line. Given that Bruce has had talks with Peter Crouch and has Jones and Campbell in his squad, it’s difficult to see Bruce opting to keep this lone striker policy but, clearly, this will be worth monitoring throughout the pre-season.

Roberto Martinez was another manager taking his bow at a new club but, unlike Bruce, he sampled the bitter-ish taste of pre-season defeat as Wigan went down 1-0 at Crewe.

Martinez commented afterwards that he saw this first friendly as a training exercise after changing his entire eleven at half-time. However, Wigan sources suggest that there was already enough evidence on show to offer clues as to his tactics for the coming season. Martinez started with two wingers – Charles N’Zogbia and Daniel De Ridder, with Oliver Kapo also in the side in a central attacking role. Jordi Gomez, the Wigan boss’ first signing from former club Swansea, was part of a five man midfield then and also made a good first impression in the playmaker role. Gomez earned 12 goals and 9 assists in 38 starts under Martinez at Swansea last season – clearly he is worth monitoring if Wigan begin to suggest they are capable of scoring goals this term under the former Swans boss.

Finally, Blackburn faced more illustrious opposition – earning a 2-2 draw with Serie A’s Roma but losing out on pre-season penalty kicks. Paul Gallacher and Aaron Doran got the Rovers goals, as Sam Allardyce again appeared to start with three strikers with Gallacher supporting Jason Roberts and El Hadji Diouf. Behind them, Allardyce went with a physical midfield with Grella, Nzonzi and Andrews providing protection for an almost first choice defence of Jacobsen, Samba, Givet and Warnock. Club skipper Ryan Nelsen emerged from the bench in the second-half, as did Benni McCarthy and Morten Gamst-Pedersen.