Moussa Diaby (£6.5m) scored on his Aston Villa debut and Nicolas Jackson (£7.0m) racked up his fifth attacking return of pre-season in the latest round of summer friendlies.
There were three all-Premier-League ties as the Summer Series continued, the main talking points discussed below.
ASTON VILLA 2-0 FULHAM
- Goals: Philogene, Diaby
- Assists: Digne, Luiz
DIABY DEBUT
Moussa Diaby (£6.5m) took less than half an hour of his Villa debut to open his account.
Racing onto a lofted Douglas Luiz (£5.5m) pass, the France international finished with a powerful effort – a bit of a trademark of the versatile attacker.
The size of the transfer fee, a potentially generous FPL price tag and a consistent flow of attacking returns in Germany was already enough for us to sit up and take notice.
But the prospect of him effectively playing ‘out of position’, as a second striker behind/alongside Ollie Watkins (£8.0m), only furthers his appeal.
He was deployed in this role in the early hours of Thursday morning, first alongside Cameron Archer (£4.5m) before Watkins was introduced.
It was a quiet performance, in truth, but these were his first minutes with his new team-mates and an early goal will only help.
Archer was wasteful up top, spurning a penalty-kick among other chances, and it was a different budget FPL asset, attacking midfielder Jaden Philogene (£4.5m), who was responsible for putting Villa a goal to the good.
“He is in pre-season with us, we are of course giving him chances and he was at the beginning training to take an opportunity with us and he is doing very well.” – Unai Emery on Jadon Philogene
KONSA AT RIGHT-BACK
After he stuck with the old guard against Newcastle, Emery opted to use Pau Torres (£4.5m) and Diego Carlos (£4.5m) at centre-back on Tuesday. Both of them impressed, to add to the confusion over which pairing starts in Gameweek 1.
Emery actually started with three recognised centre-halves, with Ezri Konsa (£4.5m) moonlighting at right-back.
It also freed up Lucas Digne (£4.5m) to bomb forward, and it was the Frenchman – devoid of much competition with Alex Moreno (£5.0m) injured – who set up Philogene.
Konsa performed admirably in his role and, as a warning for prospective owners of Matty Cash (£4.5m), it’s a tactic that Emery intimated we could see in the season to come.
“We are trying to practice on different tactical ways and one is to play with Konsa as well as a right-back and to build up with three at the back. He did well and the second half he played as a centre-back but we need to keep practicing different ways we can play next season.” – Unai Emery
Konsa did appear to get injured in the second half before exiting, so that tactical experiment may be shelved for now.
FULHAM STRETCHED
Fulham didn’t do too badly, matching Villa for spells.
Carlos Vinicius (£5.0m) spurned two openings and Harry Wilson (£5.5m), who has looked a threat all summer, wasted the best of the Cottages’ opportunities.
What’s striking about Marco Silva’s squad, however, is how wafer-thin it is thanks to injuries and a lack of new arrivals.
“Unfortunately, we are really short in numbers and don’t have senior players on the bench. Just Willian came on second half, all the other players were our Under-21s, and the level and the quality is completely different.” – Marco Silva
Aston Villa XI: Olsen (Martínez 46), Konsa (Chambers 69), Carlos (Cash 46), Torres (Mings 49), Digne (Revan 61), Kamara (Luiz 46), Tielemans, Philogene (Kellyman 61), McGinn (Diaby 46), Buendía (Coutinho 61), Archer (Watkins 61).
CHELSEA 1-1 NEWCASTLE UNITED
- Goals: Jackson | Almiron
- Assists: Maatsen | Gordon
ACTION JACKSON
Nicolas Jackson (£7.0m) has played only 118 minutes of pre-season football and already has five attacking returns to his name; there’s nothing quite like some goal contributions in partly meaningless warm-up matches to bolster a player’s FPL standing.
But there’s no doubt that the early signs are encouraging, with the striker’s movement, pace and fleet of foot catching the eye.
This was the first match in which Jackson and fellow summer signing Christopher Nkunku (£7.5m) made the same starting line-up, the latter playing in a supporting ‘number 10’ role as Jackson led the line.
Jackson converted Chelsea’s only goal of the game against Newcastle before being hooked at half-time, Nkunku then moving up top after the break; one thing you would say about Nkunku is that his game-time is perhaps more assured, with his versatility an asset.
JAMES RETURNS
Reece James (£5.5m) was back from injury as Malo Gusto (£4.0m) made way, the full-back enjoying plenty of freedom down his flank as right-winger Ian Maatsen drifted infield, closer to Jackson and Nkunku.
We’ve yet to witness James and Ben Chilwell (£5.5m) together. So far we’ve only seen Mauricio Pochettino use one or the other, with an opposite full-back in Marc Cucurella (£5.0m) or Gusto operating in a more restrained capacity.
Newcastle had one of their own star men making a return from injury, with Nick Pope (£5.5m) impressing upon his half-time introduction.
The Magpies were back in their usual 4-3-3 shape here after the wing-back experiment of the weekend, their first-choice defence starting the game.
Competition in the wide areas is really hotting up now, with Miguel Almiron (£6.5m) and Anthony Gordon (£5.5m) responding to the signing of Harvey Barnes (£6.5m) with arguably the best two Newcastle displays of the match. The pair combined for Almiron’s equaliser and Gordon even swapped positions with Alexander Isak (£7.5m) in the second half, the Swede drifting to the left as the former Everton man moved centrally.
With Newcastle back in action this weekend, several of their squad like Callum Wilson (£8.0m) didn’t feature.
INJURY UPDATES
There were injury updates from both managers after the game, with Mauricio Pochettino explaining the reasons for notable absences and Eddie Howe discussing the hamstring injury that forced Fabian Schar (£5.0m) off.
“Noni is in Philadelphia; he has a little tightness in his hamstring. It’s not a big thing.
“We also took precautions with Thiago [Silva] and Levi [Colwill] and then we don’t have more possibilities to play with Angelo and Lewis [Hall] because we have three players in the same positions. We can’t play all.
“It’s only Noni that suffers [with an injury] but it is something that we think can be sorted in the next few days.” – Mauricio Pochettino
“We think he’s OK. He’s saying he’s got tightness in his hamstring – he doesn’t think he’s pulled any muscle.” – Eddie Howe on Fabian Schar
Chelsea XI: Kepa; James (Gusto, 64), Chalobah, Humphreys, Cucurella (Chilwell, 64); Fernandez (Santos, 64), Casadei (Moreira, 77); Maatsen (Chukwuemeka, 64), Nkunku (Burstow, 77), Mudryk (Sterling, HT), Jackson (Gallagher, HT)
Newcastle United XI: Dubravka (Pope, HT); Trippier (Ashby, 84), Botman, Schar (Murphy, 33) Burn; L.Miley, Tonali, Joelinton (Turner-Cooke, 84); Almiron (Parkinson, 77), Isak, Gordon
BRENTFORD 0-2 BRIGHTON AND HOVE ALBION
- Goals: Adingra x2
- Assists: Steele, Alzate
ANOTHER YOUNG BRIGHTON GEM
Sitting uncomfortably, Kaoru Mitoma (£6.5m) owners?
One of the winger’s positional rivals, Simon Adingra (£5.0m), bagged a brace as Brighton edged Brentford in the US.
There are even parallels between the two young midfielders’ career trajectories. Adingra is just back from a year’s loan with Union SG – the same team that ‘borrowed’ Mitoma for a year in 2021/22.
Adingra delivered 20 attacking returns in 30 Belgian top-tier run-outs last season.
One positive is that when Mitoma was introduced, Adingra switched flanks – so it could still be a viable tactic to field both players in the same XI.
“I know the quality of Adingra. He is another big player for us. I think we are building a very strong team with many players in every position on the pitch. We’ll play four competitions and we have to be ready to change many players every three days.
“Adingra, like [Evan] Ferguson and [Julio] Enciso, is very young. We have other attackers like [Danny] Welbeck, [Adam] Lallana, [Kaoru] Mitoma, but we have to have many players because this season will be tough.” – Roberto De Zerbi
Joao Pedro (£5.5m) impressed again, here leading the line from kick-off to increase the doubts over Evan Ferguson‘s (£6.0m) pitch-time in Gameweek 1 and beyond.
STEELE RESPONDS
Much like Ari Muric (£4.5m) at Burnley, Jason Steele (£4.5m) faces a challenge to his number one spot in 2023/24.
But also like Muric, Steele has responded to the signing of a big-money positional rival in fine style in pre-season.
The pass-pinging goalkeeper claimed an assist for Adingra’s first strike, also making a string of fine stops to keep Brentford at bay. The jury remains out on who Roberto De Zerbi will side with come Gameweek 1.
Mark Flekken (£4.5m) wasn’t quite so assured in the opposite goal, stranded in no man’s land for Brighton’s first strike and flapping at a cross or two. It’s early days, of course, and David Raya (£5.0m) wasn’t averse to an error or two in the early stages of his Brentford career.
CHANCES FOR WISSA
Yoane Wissa (£6.0m) drew a blank but, if you’re a glass-half-full kind of manager, the positive was that he was getting chances. Lots of them.
The forward, again leading the line in Thomas Frank’s 4-3-3, was either thwarted by Steele, last-ditch defending or his own profligacy.
Bryan Mbeumo (£6.5m), with his signature cut-in-and-shoot move, also posed a threat, albeit without getting the same level of chances as Wissa.
Interestingly, Wissa had the better shot-to-goal conversation rate and xG delta of the two last season.
Brentford XI: Flekken (Strakosha 61); Ajer (Roerslev 78), Zanka (Pinnock 61), Collins (Mee 70), Henry (Bech 78); Onyeka (Damsgaard 61), Janelt (Jensen 46), Dasilva (Baptiste 46); Lewis-Potter (Olakigbe 70), Wissa, Mbeumo (Peart-Harris 78)
Brighton and Hove Albion XI: Steele; Hinshelwood (Weir 65), Veltman (Turns 70), Webster (Samuels 70), Gross (Estupinan 59); Buonanotte (Mitoma 59), Gilmour (Dahoud 70), Alzate (Caicedo 65), Adingra (Undav 65); Enciso (Ferguson 46), Joao Pedro (Peupion 70)
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