Wilson misses pre-season friendly with ‘slight knock’ as van Dijk makes comeback

We’ve two more pre-season friendlies to report on from Thursday and Friday, as Liverpool and Newcastle United continued their preparations for the upcoming new season.

Leeds United also had a scheduled fixture but a ‘B’ team was sent to Fleetwood Town, so we’ve omitted that match for the Whites from this round-up.

Don’t forget to check out our comprehensive pre-season page for more information on the warm-up matches taking place ahead of Gameweek 1.

BURTON ALBION 0-2 NEWCASTLE UNITED

• Goals: Jacob Murphy (£5.0m), Joelinton (£6.0m)
• Assists: Isaac Hayden (£4.5m), Ryan Fraser (£5.5m)

Newcastle United’s first-choice front two were both absent at the Pirelli Stadium but there doesn’t seem to be much concern about either player from the Magpies’ camp.

Callum Wilson (£7.5m) wasn’t risked on Friday night due to a “slight knock”, while Allan Saint-Maximin (£6.5m) has not trained in several days due to illness and sat out his second successive warm-up game. 

With Martin Dubravka (£4.5m) injured and Karl Darlow (£4.5m) still recovering at home after testing positive for COVID-19 earlier this month, it was again Mark Gillespie (£4.0m) and unpriced Freddie Woodman who shared duties between the posts.

The unavailability of Wilson and Saint-Maximin saw Ryan Fraser (£5.5m) given an ‘out of position’ run-out alongside Joelinton (£6.0m) up top and both frontmen were among the attacking returns.

The much-maligned Brazilian ‘assisted the assister’ for Newcastle’s first goal, with Isaac Hayden‘s (£4.5m) fluffed effort falling kindly for the excellent Jacob Murphy (£5.0m) to volley home.

Joelinton then got onto the end of Fraser’s 47th-minute corner, having earlier been teed up by the diminutive winger for a shot that was cleared off the line.

Still in the 3-5-2/5-3-2 that Steve Bruce ended last season with, Newcastle’s formation is looking fairly settled going into the new campaign, with perhaps just one or two judgement calls on personnel to make.

The in-form Murphy – who almost scored a solo second goal – looks to have again secured the right wing-back slot with no sign of budget asset Javier Manquillo (£4.0m) in pre-season, although FPL’s irksome classification of him as a midfielder obviously puts a big dent in his appeal.

Newcastle United XI: Woodman (Gillespie 46), Murphy (Allen 83), Schar (Lascelles 63), Krafth (Clark 63), Fernandez (Watts 79), Ritchie (M. Longstaff 76), Hayden (Young 83), S. Longstaff (Lewis 63), Hendrick, Joelinton (Gayle 55), Fraser (White 55).

HERTHA BERLIN 4-3 LIVERPOOL

• Goals: Sadio Mane (£12.0m), Takumi Minamino (£5.5m), Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain (£6.0m)
• Assists: Mohamed Salah (£12.5m)

While many attacking players from Manchester United and Manchester City are only just returning to training now following belated summer breaks, Liverpool’s key Fantasy assets have been up and running for a while.

Thursday’s defeat to Hertha was the third pre-season outing for Sadio Mane (£12.0m), Mohamed Salah (£12.5m) and Trent Alexander-Arnold (£7.5m), each of whom are looking increasingly sharp ahead of Gameweek 1.

Andrew Robertson (£7.0m) and Diogo Jota (£7.5m) were also back involved against the Bundesliga side after a post-EURO 2020 breather but the headlines belonged to Virgil van Dijk (£6.5m) and Joe Gomez (£5.0m), who both returned to playing action after lengthy periods on the sidelines.

Neither player covered themselves in glory with their roles for Stevan Jovetic’s second and Hertha’s fourth goal of the evening but the 22-minute run-outs were less about the result and all about getting the central defensive pair back on the grass again ahead of Gameweek 1.

Jurgen Klopp said of van Dijk and Gomez afterwards:

[They] started immediately well and usually we all know that the fourth goal is a clear situation which saw and defend well. But that’s it. I’m not sure, 260-something days for Virg and not much less for Joe they didn’t play football, so it’s nice to have them back. It was the first step, really important. 

Nearly all are back, then during [the upcoming trip to] Evian they will pretty much all be back I think. That’s good and then we can really start preparing, involve them all, get used to each other again and all this kind of stuff. Then we have a tricky start away at Norwich, that’s how it is. 

The Reds fell 2-0 down before Mane bundled home at the second attempt to halve the deficit and Salah beautifully teed up Takumi Minamino (£5.5m) with a superb backheel to restore parity.

Hertha restored their two-goal advantage before Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain (£6.0m), again playing as the spearhead of the Liverpool front three in the absence of the holidaying Roberto Firmino (£9.0m), grabbed a late consolation.

The Reds ought to be in tip-top condition by the time their opening weekend clash with Norwich City comes around as they still have another four pre-season friendlies to contest.

Liverpool XI: Kelleher (Adrián 46), Alexander-Arnold (N. Williams 60), Konaté (R. Williams 46, Gomez 68), Matip (Phillips 46, van Dijk 68), Tsimikas (Robertson 46), Elliott (Jones 46), Keïta (Morton 60), Milner (Clarkson 60), Salah (Gordon 60), Minamino (Oxlade-Chamberlain 46), Mané (Jota 60).