The pre-season picture continues to build as more Premier League teams played summer friendlies over the weekend.
We’ve got all the latest Fantasy talking points as Everton, Crystal Palace, Norwich and Brighton were in action on Friday.
AS Monaco 0-1 Everton
Goals: Seamus Coleman (£5.5m)
Assists: Oumar Niasse
Everton defenders Seamus Coleman (£5.5m) and Lucas Digne (£6.0m) both demonstrated their attacking credentials in Everton’s win over Monaco on Friday.
The right-back scored the only goal of the game with a brave header inside the six-yard box after an effort from Oumar Niasse.
Meanwhile, Digne, his colleague on the other flank, went very close with a spectacular left-footed volley from a Gylfi Sigurdsson (£8.0m) corner.
Between the two full-backs was young centre-half Lewis Gibson, who has been involved in all three pre-season matches so far.
In fact, no Everton player has registered more minutes in the summer so far.
Admittedly, he did give away a penalty against Monaco but the word is that he has largely been impressive.
Whether or not he has a serious chance at breaking into the first team is another matter entirely though.
With plenty still up in the air about Everton’s defensive situation, it would premature at this stage to seriously discuss Gibson’s potential for the season ahead.
We must remember that Yerry Mina (£5.5m) missed the first portion of pre-season as it fell under his extended leave following Colombia’s quarter-final exit from the Copa America last month.
The centre-back arrived back in training on Monday morning, along with Dominic Calvert-Lewin (£6.0m), and will fancy his chances of starting alongside Michael Keane (£5.5m) against Wigan on Wednesday.
Furthermore, the future of Kurt Zouma remains up in the air and should have an impact on the centre-back situation at Everton this season, as we found out in THIS MEMBERS’ ARTICLE.
“In terms of Kurt Zouma, he’s a very good defender for us, very good player, very good person and professional. I want him here, simple as that. We are competitive with the centre-backs we have in the team and he had a very good season at Everton and I can understand why they want him. But he’s a Chelsea player and I want him. I want him to be happy. He’s working really hard and if he competes and plays well, he plays.” – Frank Lampard
Gibson’s Under-23s colleague Nathan Broadhead has also been involved extensively in all Everton’s pre-season matches so far.
The winger has caused opposing defenders plenty of problems so far and may hold promise for the future.
However, like Gibson, we certainly can’t predict extensive first-team involvement this season just yet.
Richarlison (£8.0m) is set to return to Everton training on Monday, July 29 following a victorious Copa America campaign with Brazil and is ahead of Broadhead in the pecking order.
However, it is worth pointing out that Theo Walcott (£6.5m) and Bernard (£6.5m) have both been around for pre-season but still have fewer minutes to their names than Broadhead currently.
Finally, Everton’s pre-season campaign so far might have indicated who Marco Silva’s preferred second-choice goalkeeper is.
Despite limited summer minutes so far, Jordan Pickford (£5.5m) is still the number one, but Maarten Stekelenburg (£4.0m) has been the most-used so far.
It had been thought that Jonas Lössl (£4.5m), arriving from Huddersfield Town, would be the England international’s understudy, but Stekelenburg has impressed in pre-season so far.
Against Monaco, he put in a particularly strong display, with a string of decent saves, also saving the penalty conceded by Gibson and smothering the rebound effort too.
Everton (4-2-3-1): Stekelenburg; Digne, Keane, Gibson, Coleman; Schneiderlin (Davies 46), Gomes (Adeniran 83); Broadhead (Walcott 46), Sigurdsson (McCarthy 78), Bernard (Mirallas 78); Niasse.
Nottingham Forest 1-0 Crystal Palace
Goals: None
Assists: None
Crystal Palace’s defensive problems continued as they were defeated by Championship side Nottingham Forest on Friday.
That came after a 6-2 loss against League Two outfit Barnet earlier in the week, with Roy Hodgson lamenting the defensive situation at Selhurst Park in the wake of injuries to James Tomkins (£5.0m) and Mamadou Sakho (£5.0m) as well as the departure of Aaron Wan-Bissaka (£5.5m).
“We really don’t have any defenders, to speak of. Aaron’s gone and we’ve got three others injured. We will have to do the best we can to make sure we replace [Wan-Bissaka] in some way.” – Roy Hodgson
Those issues led to another start at centre-back for Martin Kelly (£4.0m) alongside Scott Dann (£4.5m).
Joel Ward (£4.5m) continues to appear the temporary replacement for Wan-Bissaka as he started at right-back again.
There has been some interest in Connor Wickham (£4.5m) as a third-striker during pre-season but he wasn’t treated to any minutes at the City Ground, remaining an unused substitute.
Christian Benteke (£6.0m) remains the most nailed-on forward player for Palace’s Gameweek 1 line-up as he spearheaded a 4-4-1-1 attack.
The Belgian striker currently has the third-most pre-season minutes among Palace players, while only Alexander Sørloth’s total of 225 is greater than his 224 in the forwards’ department.
Supporting Benteke against Nottingham Forest was Jeffrey Schlupp (£5.5m), who was deployed as a number 10/second-striker in the 4-4-1-1 formation.
Meanwhile, Wilfried Zaha (£7.0m) continues to be absent from Palace’s pre-season campaign.
The fact that he was missing from the matchday squad in Nottingham caused some fans on social media to further fuel rumours that he is leaving the club.
However, Zaha simply remains on his extended leave period after involvement in the African Cup of Nations this summer.
Ivory Coast were eliminated from the tournament in the quarter-final stages on July 11, still only 11 days ago.
Extended leave after major international tournaments is typically three weeks, and if Zaha were to follow suit, he would not be back in the Palace fold until the first week of August.
That would mean the only pre-season friendly he could participate in would be the visit of Hertha Berlin to Selhurst Park on August 3.
Crystal Palace (4-4-1-1): Hennessey; van Aanholt, Dann, Kelly, Ward; Meyer, Milivojevic, McArthur, Townsend; Schlupp; Benteke.
Schalke 1-2 Norwich City
Goals: Teemu Pukki (£6.5m), Moritz Leitner (£4.5m)
Assists: Patrick Roberts (£5.5m), Pukki
Teemu Pukki (£6.5m) continues to look sharp in pre-season as he scored and assisted in Norwich’s 2-1 win over Schalke on Friday.
The Finland international already opened his summer account as Bonner SC were defeated 4-1 earlier in the week.
While these are only pre-season matches, impressive performances and a hand in three goals show that Pukki’s confidence is still high since winning the Championship Golden Boot last season.
The ex-Schalke forward could have come away with another goal against his former employers a few minutes later but forced a good save from Markus Schubert.
Norwich’s loan signing Patrick Roberts (£5.5m) also continues to draw some attention on the right flank of attacking midfield.
He has now racked up 195 pre-season minutes in three matches, only four players managing more, none of them in his position.
The Manchester City man assisted Pukki’s opening strike against Schalke, having also set up Adam Idah’s first goal against Bonner SC.
That takes his assist total for pre-season two so far, more than any other Norwich option so far.
There was welcome news for Daniel Farke in the defensive area of the field as centre-back Ben Godfrey (£4.5m) returned from the injury picked up in the first pre-season match against DSC Arminia Bielefeld game.
Christoph Zimmermann‘s (£4.5m) remains out with an injury that could see him miss the start of the season.
It had been assumed that Timm Klose (£4.5m) would come in alongside Godfrey, but is yet to play a single minute of pre-season.
Meanwhile, centre-back Grant Hanley (£4.0m) has registered more time on the pitch than any other Norwich option this summer.
Norwich XI (4-2-3-1): Krul (McGovern, 46); Lewis (Heise 83′), Godfrey, Hanley, Aarons; Trybull, Leitner; Cantwell (Idah 86′), Stiepermann (Hernandez 75′), Roberts (Byram 75′); Pukki (Srbeny, 75).
Crawley Town 0-1 Brighton and Hove Albion
Goals: Taylor Richards (penalty)
Assists: Max Sanders
It was almost entirely a Brighton youth team that beat Crawley on Friday.
Of the 18 players involved in the friendly, only one of them currently has a price in FPL.
That is centre-back Matthew Clarke (£4.5m), who recently joined the club from Portsmouth.
The fact that Graham Potter chose him for this match, with most of the first-team used the next day against Fulham, probably indicates that he will not be troubling Shane Duffy (£5.0m) or Lewis Dunk (£4.5m) for a place in the first team just yet.
Leon Balogun (£4.5m) is yet to play his part in the pre-season friendlies given his time at the African Cup of Nations with Cameroon.
However, a second-round exit for the Indomitable Lions should see him back in time to provide the first line of cover.
Meanwhile, Tomer Hemed, who spent the 2018/19 season on loan at Queens Park Rangers, was handed 45-minutes against Crawley.
Brighton (4-2-3-1): Walton (Sanchez 46); Sanders, Baluta, Clarke, Cox (Cochrane 61); Ahannach (Gwargis 61), Roberts (Kazukolovas 74); Mlakar, Hemed (Spong 46), Gyokeres (Davies 61); Connolly (Richards 46).
