The weekend saw almost all of our Premier League clubs contest another spate of pre-season friendlies all across the globe from Portugal to America, Germany to China and from Belgium to Rochdale.
Our Pre-Season Form Guide is already up to date with all the results, scorers and team lineups available for your perusal but here’s some points of interest from some of the choice fixtures…
For the second pre-season game in a row, Martin O’Neill chose to employ Ashley Young in the role of support striker as Villa lost to Bohemians 2-1 on Saturday. Whether this is just shuffling the pack and experimenting with options in the practice matches or an indication of times to come -perhaps in anticipation of the rumoured loss of James MIlner- it is certainly of interest and carries an array of potential implications.
Those implications could be key. We’re used to seeing John Carew and Gabriel Agbonlahor paired up together, but should this formation continue through the upcoming friendlies they will begin to vie with each other for the sole remaining strikers spot. The central role for Young may also create the availability of a real Fantasy bargain in the shape of Marc Albrighton, arguably Villa’s strongest performer in pre-season so far and only £4.5m in Fantasy Premier League (FPL). If he could keep that spot he may prove a very tantalising proposition for Fantasy Managers. This is all, of course, on the proviso that O’Neill can keep Young at the club too.
Back on English soil, Stoke gave their pre-season a thunderous kick-start by scoring fifteen goals – yes, you read that correctly, Stoke City and fifteen goals – across two friendlies, that’s more goals than they scored on the road all of last season. The first string were vitalised by a hat-trick from striker (a £5.5m FPL midfielder, once more) Tuncay and man of the match forgotten man Michael Tonge, scoring six goals in total. The second string scored nine with a James Beattie brace most notable.
Over in the warmer climes of a Portuguese evening we saw Sunderland escalate their build-up with a 4-2 victory over Nigel Pearson’s Hull City. Ex-Tiger Frazier Campbell walked away with more than his share of the plaudits after he netted all four of Sunderlands goals, with a little assistance from Jordan Henderson and Steed Malbranque.
Elsewhere, Garry O’Connor continued to pressure the idea he is a first team striker by scoring his third goal in successive games as Birmingham finished their tour of China with a 2-0 win over Liaoning Hongyun, Liverpool’s youthful side went goalless once more as they lost 0-1 to Kaiserslautern, Jermaine Beckford opened his Everton account as he bagged a brace in the 3-0 win over Preston and Wigan scored five in their victory over Hamilton Academical.
The early hours of the morning meanwhile saw United slip to their first defeat of their North American tour; they suffered a somewhat controversial 2-1 loss to Kansas City. Dimitar Berbatov rolled home United’s goal from the spot after he was “felled” in the box; a decision which also reduced Kansas to ten men. The home side’s plucky display was rewarded however, with United aggrived at Kansas’ winner which was adjudged to have crossed the line. Ferguson again fielded a relatively young lineup, although the likes of Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes and the returning Nani, provided plenty of Premier League experience.
All these results, and many more that took place over the weekend, can be founded chronicled in our Pre-Season Form Guide ready for you to scout all the clubs as the fixtures roll on.