Coventry City kicked off the final weekend of pre-season friendlies with a 2-0 win over Monaco at the CBS Arena.
From some much-needed clarity over the £4.0m defenders to some notable absentees, here are the major talking points from a Fantasy Premier League (FPL) perspective.
FPL 2026/27 Pre-season Minutes, Goals + Assists Tracker
COVENTRY CITY 2-0 Monaco
- Goals: Simms, Tchaouna
- Assists: Grimes, Yerenkyi
Coventry City XI: Rushworth, van Ewijk, Thomas, Amenda, Dasilva, Onyeka (Torp 88), Grimes, Yirenkyi (Hamer 64), Tchaouna, Simms, Thomas-Asante.
SCOUT NOTES
- Concluding pre-season friendlies are usually a good indicator of what a Gameweek 1 line-up will look like, and Frank Lampard’s starting XI most definitely had a first-team feel. Indeed, the Coventry boss made only two substitutions all match, one of which was enforced in the 88th minute. It did seem like Lampard was getting fitness-boosting full-game run-outs into most of the players he intends to send out at the Emirates next Friday. The Sky Blues’ manager did say after the match, however, that another behind-closed-doors game will be contested on Saturday.
“We’ve got another 90 minutes behind closed doors tomorrow, so we’ve mixed up the minutes.” – Frank Lampard
- One of the biggest questions before this game was which pair of £4.0m centre-halves Lampard would opt for. In the end, and despite a start for Liam Kitching (£4.0m) last weekend, it was the duo who most of us expected: Bobby Thomas (£4.0m) and Aurele Amenda (£4.0m). The usual full-back pairing of Milan van Ewijk (£4.0m) and Jay Dasilva (£4.0m) were either side of them.
- Further forward, there was a debut for Caleb Yirenkyi (£5.0m). He and Frank Onyeka (£5.0m) were the two ‘eights’ ahead of deep-lying metronome Scott Grimes (£5.0m), and mighty impressive the debutant was, too. We discussed Yirenkyi’s DefCon appeal upon his capture and that was in evidence against Monaco, with the young Ghanaian snapping into challenges and pressing aggressively. Not just that, but there was a bit of goal threat. He had two great chances in the first four minutes, first mistiming a jump and then firing straight at the opposition ‘keeper from 12 yards:
- Yirenkyi went on to supply the assist for Coventry’s second goal, scored by Loum Tchaouna (£5.5m), with a through-ball. The £5.0m midfielder is one to watch, although he might be a tad behind his new teammates in terms of fitness as he came off after 64 minutes.
- Onyeka was the second player taken off, hobbling out of proceedings late on. It looked like he’d jarred something when tackling a Monaco player minutes earlier, but we didn’t get an update after full-time.
- It was more of the same from Grimes, who was Coventry’s leading chance creator in 2025/26. The midfield anchor threaded some lovely through-balls, assisting Ellis Simms (£5.0m) with one, and took all of the Sky Blues’ set plays. He would have had a second assist, too, had Thomas not strayed offside when Amenda nodded home Grimes’ free-kick.
- Speaking of Simms, it’s looking increasingly likely that we’ll have a £5.0m forward starting in Gameweek 1. Lampard may yet swoop for reinforcements up top between now and September 1 but for the time being, Simms’ positional rival, Haji Wright (£5.5m), is out injured. Lampard provided an update on the American striker, as well as the absent Jack Rudoni (£5.0m) and Ephron Mason-Clark (£5.5m), after full-time.
“Rudi is coming along really well, he can play hopefully some minutes in our game tomorrow. He has worked hard. He has had a difficult injury to come back from, so making sure we get him right is important but he’s very, very close now and that’s great news for us.
“[Mason-Clark] had a small injury. He played a game at Leicester. He had a tiny little reaction in his hamstring, which we are being careful with. We are hoping he is fit to train this week and hopefully available next week.”
“[Wright] has got a quad injury which we are investigating, so I will tell you more when we know exactly what it is.” – Frank Lampard
- Simms set up Yirenkyi for that aforementioned big chance and hit another first-time shot wide later on.
- At the back, van Ewijk – whose long throws were on show again – and Thomas got through a lot of defensive work. Monaco were targeting their side of the pitch, and getting some joy from it, and you could imagine Viktor Gyokeres (£7.5m), if selected, exploiting the gaps in the inside-left channel next Friday.
- Carl Rushworth (£4.5m) was very solid between the posts, meanwhile. His distribution is a strong suit, and it was interesting to see him going direct straight to Simms or whoever was furthest forward on several occasions. It was Ederson-esque at times.
