Tuesday’s warm-ups offered us fantasy managers the chance to assess likely budget talent as Wigan, Bolton, Burnley and Wolves saw action – with varying degrees of success…
Roberto Martinez finally claimed his first victory as Wigan boss and in some style. Goals form Rodallega, N’Zogbia, Scotland and Brown gave the Latics a 4-1 win at Championship Preston. Martinez fielded a very strong side with what could be seen as a first choice defence of Melchiot, Boyce, Bramble and Figueroa, playing in front of Kirkland in goal. New signing Hendry Thomas and Cattermole provided protection in midfield, with De Ridder, Gomez and N’Zogbia given the freedom to support Rodallega in attack. That left the likes of Scharner, Watson, Brown and Scotland on the bench – although both Brown and Scotland did of course stake a claim for selection with goals here.
Gary Megson started with both Sam Ricketts and Zat Knight in Bolton’s 2-1 win over Den Bosch. Indeed, Rickett’s announced his arrival with a debut goal in the second-half, followed by a Kevin Davies strike to seal the win for the Trotters.
Megson fielded a strong side with Ricketts starting at right-back, ousting Steinsson to the bench. Knight partnered Cahill in the centre of defence. Samuel held on to the left-back spot but he was replaced by new signing Paul Robinson at half-time underlining the fact that Megson’s activity in the transfer market has given him plenty of options at the back. Gary Cahill looks by far the most secure option going into the season.
Aside from Al Habsi in goal, the Bolton lineup looked very close to a first choice side with Mark Davies, Sean Davis, Muamba, Taylor, Elmander and Kevin Davies, completing the eleven. The role of Sean Davis is perhaps of interest. Clearly rated highly by Megson, he was a starter once more and played a significant part in set-plays. On this evidence it appears that Davis will share free-kicks and corners with Matt Taylor next term.
Burnley represent an unlikely source of fantasy talent in the early part of the season given their fixtures (stk MUN EVE che liv) and that’s probably just as well considering their pre-season so far. They needed two goals in the last seven minutes to rescue a 2-2 draw at Accrington Stanley last night. Blake and Thompson with the goals to save Owen Coyle’s blushes.
Fellow newcomers Wolves meanwhile, also struggled going down 1-0 to MK Dons. Trialist Jerome Thomas was given a start by Mick McCarthy but limped off in the first-half with a suspected hamstring injury. As a side note, Milijaš appears to dominating the Wolves set plays in pre-season and could possibly be employed in the hole behind Ebanks-Blake come season kick-off – with confirmation that Kightly will now miss the season opener with West Ham, Milijaš has now emerged as the strongest budget fantasy option in the Wolves midfield.