There were five Premier League teams in action early on Wednesday afternoon, with Manchester City, West Ham United, Newcastle United and Wolverhampton Wanderers all taking part in the Premier League Asia Trophy and Manchester United facing Leeds United in Australia.
We’ll round up the main Fantasy talking points in the Scout Notes article below, while the updated pre-season minutes spreadsheet can be viewed here.
West Ham United 1-4 Manchester City
- Goals: Mark Noble (£5.0m) | David Silva (£7.5m), Lukas Nmecha, Raheem Sterling (£12.0m) x2
- Assists: Felipe Anderson (£7.0m) | Adrian Bernabe, Leroy Sane (£9.5m), Kevin De Bruyne (£9.5m)
Raheem Sterling (£12.0m) took less than half an hour of his first appearance of pre-season to remind Fantasy managers of his goalscoring credentials.
With Sergio Aguero (£12.0m) and Gabriel Jesus (£9.5m) on an extended break following their participation in the Copa America, Sterling led the line for City in the second half of their meeting with West Ham and recorded a brace as Pep Guardiola’s side emerged as 4-1 winners.
Introduced off the bench at the interval, the England international raced on to a Leroy Sane (£9.5m) pass to slot in his first goal and was then teed up by fellow substitute Kevin De Bruyne (£9.5m) to cap off City’s victory.
Pep Guardiola gave youth a chance in the first half, with David Silva (£7.5m), Aymeric Laporte (£6.5m) and debutant Rodri (£5.5m) effectively the only first-team regulars on show – although Claudio Bravo (£5.0m), Danilo (£5.0m) and new signing Angelino (£5.0m) were also handed run-outs.
The left-back position is perhaps the most difficult to call in Guardiola’s squad but Angelino didn’t get his second spell at City off to the best of starts, struggling against Felipe Anderson (£7.0m) down the West Ham right and conceding the penalty from which Mark Noble (£5.0m) converted.
Oleksandr Zinchenko (£5.5m) replaced the Brazilian full-back in the second half, with the absent Benjamin Mendy (£6.0m) reportedly still receiving treatment for a knee injury.
David Silva, in his final year at City, pulled his side level with a superbly taken goal from an equally excellent pass by winger Adrian Bernabe before Lukas Nmencha won and converted a spot-kick to put Guardiola’s side in front.
The cavalry arrived at half-time with Sterling, De Bruyne, Sane and Bernardo Silva (£8.0m) all thrown on and there was no surprise that City looked more potent as a result, with Sane, in particular, catching the eye down the left flank.
The German winger has been linked with a move away from Eastlands this summer but Guardiola – as one would expect – was full of praise for his mercurial midfielder:
He’s a great player with incredible quality. I want people to want to stay here – the club is there so the desire to have him is always there. The club made him an offer for the past year. I have said many times that we want people to be happy here and we want to help him to reach his potential.
Rodri won’t appeal to many Fantasy managers but he had a decent enough debut in the ‘Fernandinho (£5.5m) role’, earning praise from his manager after the game:
He is a young, typical defensive midfielder who thinks very quickly. I hope he is here for a long time. Rodrigo is tall, which for a short side like ours is very good. He is great at set-pieces but we didn’t buy him for that. Ever since we arrived here we have tried to buy players who are 21, 22 or 23 years old. [Rodri] is a Spain national team player and there they call him ‘the next Busquets’. I think he is a very good player.
With De Bruyne and Ilkay Gundogan (£5.5m) on the field either side of Rodri, Bernardo was again pushed forward into a front three alongside Sterling and Sane – food for thought, perhaps, for any FPL managers considering the Portuguese midfielder as a cut-price route into the City midfield.
The summer signings of Sebastian Heller (£7.5m) and Pablo Fornals (£6.5m) have given cause for optimism at West Ham and there are a number of their Fantasy assets who appeal early in the season, with the Hammers top of our Season Ticker from Gameweeks 2 to 12.
This was perhaps a reminder of the work still to be done in east London but there were positives to take away from this defeat, with Anderson, in particular, impressing in attack.
The busy Michail Antonio (£7.0m) was again ‘out of position’ as a central striker before being replaced by Javier Hernandez (£6.0m) at the break although the midfielder’s run up front is surely coming to an end following the capture of Haller.
Manuel Pellegrini still namechecked Antonio, however, when discussing his new signing and his striking options this season:
So we needed to find a new one [a striker], we have different options now. He is not only a box player, he will play well outside of the box. It will be his first season in England and I know he will be a good striker for our team. We also have Michail Antonio, Javier Hernandez too.
Manuel Lanzini (£6.5m) also caught the eye cutting in off the left flank, with Jack Wilshere (£5.0m) perhaps the placeholder for when Fornals is match-fit following his exertions at the European Under-21 Championship.
The strength of Pellegrini’s first-half XI was arguably an early indication of who he might favour for Gameweek 1, although the likes of Lukasz Fabianski (£5.0m), Fabian Balbuena (£4.5m), Fornals and Heller, of course, are still to be integrated into the team.
The Hammers were unsurprisingly not as much of a threat after the break as their second-string players were given a run-out and Pellegrini highlighted the contrast between the two halves after full-time:
I think that was a clear game of two different matches of 45 minutes. In the first half, we played well and created chances in their box but then we conceded two goals in two minutes and, of course, when you are playing against Manchester City you cannot afford to concede those goals. In the second half, they improved a lot when they changed some players, while we wanted to give some minutes to some players and we had some players who have just returned from long injures, so they made a difference. Also, I thought we made some mistakes in our defending and they capitalised. I was happy with the offensive system and the way we played in our attacking, yes, because we created more chances than Manchester City, but we must be more concentrated in our defending.
Defending was an issue last season, with only relegated Fulham and Huddersfield recording fewer clean sheets than the Hammers.
We are working on our technical side and it’s important that we have Wilshere, Lanzini and Yarmolenko this season as we didn’t have them for long periods last season due to injury. With them, we will have more balance in midfield and I think we are going to be a good attacking team. We are going to create chances, but we need to improve our defending.
Manchester City XI (4-3-3): Bravo, Danilo (Walker 63′), Harwood-Bellis, Laporte (Stones 63′), Angelino (Zinchenko 63′), Rodri (Aleix Garcia 71′), David Silva (De Bruyne 46′), Doyle (Gundogan 63′), Bernabe (Sane 46′), Poveda-Ocampo (Bernardo Silva 46′), Nmecha (Sterling 46′).
West Ham United XI (4-2-3-1): Roberto, Fredericks (Zabaleta 62′), Diop, Ogbonna (Reid 68′), Johnson (Cresswell 62′), Rice (Sanchez 46′), Noble (Obiang 62′), Lanzini (Diangana 62′), Wilshere (Snodgrass 46′), Felipe Anderson (Yarmolenko 46′), Antonio (Chicharito 46′).
Wolverhampton Wanderers 4-0 Newcastle United
- Goals: Diogo Jota (£6.5m) x2, Morgan Gibbs-White (£5.0m), Tom Allan own-goal
- Assists: Jonny (£5.5m) x2, Leander Dendoncker (£4.5m), Ruben Vinagre (£4.5m)
Diogo Jota (£6.5m) hit a first-half brace as Wolves demolished a dismal Newcastle United in their Premier League Asia Trophy semi-final on Wednesday.
Jota produced a smart finish from the edge of the box after collecting a Jonny (£5.5m) pass to open the scoring, later capitalising on an error from Isaac Hayden (£4.5m) to score his second and Wolves’ third.
The Portugal under-21 international, carrying on where he left off at the end of 2018/19, looked sharp in a 65-minute showing and was again deployed as a striker in Nuno Espirito Santo’s now-familiar 3-5-2.
Speaking after the match, the Portuguese attacker said:
Scoring goals always gives you an extra boost in terms of confidence and you have to take advantage of that and keep working hard to be 100 per cent for the first match. For the second goal, I tried to react fast to the loss of the ball. Fortunately, I scored and it was good for me and the team that we were able to make it 3-0 very soon.
In the absence of Raul Jimenez (£7.5m), who was handed a breather following his exertions in the CONCACAF Gold Cup this summer, Jota was paired up front by an ‘out of position’ Morgan Gibbs-White (£5.0m).
Wolves will surely recruit a backup striking option this summer but it was interesting that Santo turned to Gibbs-White as a makeshift forward with Jimenez unavailable.
That said, had Matt Doherty (£6.0m) not been injured and Adama Traore‘s (£5.0m) services not been needed at wing-back, then the speedy Wolves utility man may have been given the nod alongside Jota instead.
Gibbs-White found the back of the net in between Jota’s two strikes, with Jonny collecting another assist.
The newly reclassified FPL forward said of his partnership with Gibbs-White:
It was different, Raul plays in a different style, Morgan isn’t as strong as Raul is, but we linked together very well and tried to do the best we can.
Santo added on Gibbs-White:
He did well. It’s not his natural position but he gives certain things and this is the versatile players that we have and that we must have because we are a short squad, we want to maintain, so players must do more than one position on the pitch.
Except for the missing Jimenez and Doherty, Wolves were pretty much at full strength and their extra week of pre-season – their Europa League campaign begins next week – was telling as they swatted aside the rudderless Magpies.
The regular back three of Willy Boly, Conor Coady and Ryan Bennett (all £5.0m) were handed 90 minutes each, while the now first-choice midfield three of Leander Dendoncker (£4.5m), Ruben Neves (£5.5m) and Joao Moutinho (£5.5m) played the bulk of the game.
Dendoncker caught the eye and it was from his run and cross that Jota scored his second, while the all-action Jonny excelled from wing-back.
Traore hasn’t always convinced (from a defensive perspective, anyway) when asked to deputise for Doherty on the opposite flank but he was another to impress in Nanjing on Wednesday.
Bennett said of his teammate:
Adama’s done brilliantly, I think he’s been spot on and you can’t fault him at all. You talk to him, the manager speaks to him and everything that everyone says, he really wants to learn. He just takes it on board. Tracking back is a bit unusual for him but he’s got stuck in. Then when he gets the ball he’s devastating, so we need to try and give it to him as much as we can. His attacking threat is unbelievable.
As for Newcastle, who appointed Steve Bruce as manager shortly before the game, this was an entirely predictable defeat ahead of what potentially could be a very difficult season.
While Wolves had the advantage of being further down the line with their training regime and United named several second-string players in their starting XI, there was no mitigating the gulf in class between the two clubs.
Stand-in manager Ben Dawson couldn’t call on the Magpies’ potent front three of last season for various reasons – Miguel Almiron (£6.0m) is on a break after international duty, while Ayoze Perez (£6.5m) and Salomon Rondon are no longer on the books – and Newcastle were limp in attack, barely mustering a shot of note.
Having been reclassified as an FPL defender this summer, Matt Ritchie (£5.5m) was stationed on the left wing but, with Newcastle in disarray, there’ll likely be few Fantasy managers interested in the first few Gameweeks of the season (and beyond) despite the ‘out of position’ tag and set-piece responsibilities.
Having posed little threat in attack, the Magpies were also wobbly at the back and Wolves’ fourth strike, a comical own-goal from youngster Tom Allan from a Ruben Vinagre (£4.5m) corner, summed up their afternoon.
Newcastle United XI (4-5-1): Darlow (Woodman 46′), Sterry (Manquillo 46′), Clark (Watts 59′), Lascelles (Fernández 46′), Lazaar (Bailey 63′), Murphy (Allan 63′), Hayden, Colback (M. Longstaff 63′), Shelvey (Ki Sung-yueng 59′), Ritchie (Aarons 55′), Muto (Sorensen 63′).
Wolves XI (3-5-2): Rui Patricio (Ruddy 46′), Adama (Perry 65′), Bennett, Coady, Boly, Jonny (Vinagre 65′), Neves (Taylor 81′), Moutinho (Cundle 81′), Dendoncker (Hong Wan 81′), Gibbs-White (Sanderson 65′), Jota (Ennis 65′).
Manchester United 4-0 Leeds United
- Goals: Mason Greenwood (£4.5m), Marcus Rashford (£8.5m), Phil Jones (£5.0m), Anthony Martial (£7.5m)
- Assists: Aaron Wan-Bissaka (£5.5m), Scott McTominay (£5.0m), Andreas Pereira (£5.0m), Tahith Chong (£4.5m)
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has teased the prospect of budget FPL forward Mason Greenwood (£4.5m) being involved in the Gameweek 1 clash with Chelsea.
Speaking after the 4-0 win over Leeds United in Perth, the Norwegian said:
He’s got a chance to start that one, definitely. He’s more than capable. He’ll always be there in and around the box, creating chances, and I won’t say that’s not a possibility. No, it’s a good possibility if he keeps going as he does. It’s difficult to keep players out who perform well.
Greenwood had lined up on the right flank of a 4-2-3-1 for United’s latest pre-season friendly success, in what was unquestionably the stronger of the two teams that Solskjaer sent out in either half.
The teenage forward opened his United account with the game’s opening goal on seven minutes, tucking in Aaron Wan-Bissaka‘s (£5.5m) low cross following fine work from Paul Pogba (£8.5m) in midfield.
Solskjaer said of Greenwood after full-time:
Of course, we’ve been delighted with the goal he scored. It’s important for scorers to get that goal, even though I’ve always said we know he’s capable of scoring goals. The first one is going to be a weight off his shoulders. I think with his movement and his cleverness, he’s going to be a very good player, the young boy. He can play all of the front-three positions, or across the front four, as he can play no. 10, no. 7, no. 11 and no. 9. He’s a natural footballer with his left foot, coming in, but he’s got two feet and can play anywhere along the front. He’s just a natural. When he takes a penalty with his right, then takes a penalty with his left, free-kicks with his left, free-kicks with his right. He is almost what you’d call 50-50, maybe 51-49 left-footed. You can see we’ve got a talented boy there and he’s every opportunity to make it as a Manchester United player. Of course, it’s also going to be about luck. He must stay clear of injuries, be professional and I’m sure he’s going to grab his chance. Everything is there for him.
Greenwood was part of a lively front four for United in the first half, with Daniel James‘ (£6.0m) searing pace causing problems on the opposite flank – although the summer signing from Swansea was still a mixed bag when it came to end product.
Juan Mata (£6.5m) looked better in what is clearly his best position in the hole but it was some Fantasy favourites of 2018/19 who perhaps warranted the most attention.
Marcus Rashford (£8.5m) made it two goals from two games when scoring United’s second, racing onto Scott McTominay‘s (£5.0m) pass and producing some nimble footwork before firing low past Kiko Casilla.
Rashford had earlier hit the post and looked sharp as the spearhead of the attack, with United’s speed on the break and ferocity of pressing a refreshing antidote to the one-pace team of 12 months ago.
The England striker said after full-time:
There’s a lot to improve on still but, for us, it’s about getting the pictures in our heads. It’s been a while since we’ve been a real pressing team and I feel that now, in this pre-season, we’ve laid down the fundamentals of how we’re actually going to press. The first game against Perth, the way we pressed in the first half was brilliant. It’s tough going for 90 minutes but we’ll improve and we’ll get better at it.
Wan-Bissaka impressed up and down the right flank, displaying more attacking threat than we have become accustomed to seeing at Palace.
We voiced concerns about Wan-Bissaka’s assist potential in our recent Moving Target article because of the fact that United funnelled most of their play down the left-hand side of the pitch last season: no coincidence given that Pogba, so heavily involved when the Red Devils have possession, was mostly stationed in that zone.
We have seen the Frenchman on the opposite side of central midfield in pre-season, though, which could boost Wan-Bissaka’s Fantasy appeal significantly.
The pair’s respective roles in Greenwood’s goal underscored the impact Pogba could have.
The supposedly wantaway France international was nearing something like top form in this encounter although the fact that he seems set to play as part of a deeper central midfield two in future will be off-putting to some Fantasy managers.
Still, Pogba got forward to have several cracks at goal from the edge of the Leeds box and whistled a free-kick narrowly wide too.
Solskjaer changed all 11 players at half-time, with Anthony Martial (£7.5m) leading the line in the second half and scoring from the spot after a foul on Tahith Chong (£4.5m).
Phil Jones (£5.0m) had added a third before Martial’s penalty, nodding in an Andreas Pereira (£5.0m) corner.
David de Gea (£5.5m), Luke Shaw (£5.5m) and Romelu Lukaku (£8.5m) all missed out with minor problems and Solskjaer didn’t seem unduly concerned after full-time, saying:
David just fell ill today so he didn’t feel right. We’ll wait until the Inter Milan game [on Saturday] for him. They’re not ready, the others, either [Lukaku, Shaw and Lee Grant]. Of course, it’s not ideal when you miss a training session and he [Lukaku] was missing towards the end of yesterday’s session. He missed the game again and it’s two chances to play 45 minutes at this stage of the pre-season. It’s important for everyone to get fit and hopefully, he’ll be available soon.
Manchester United first-half XI (4-2-3-1): Romero, Wan-Bissaka, Bailly, Lindelof, Rojo, McTominay, Pogba, Greenwood, Mata, James, Rashford.
Manchester United second-half XI (4-2-3-1): J. Pereira, Dalot, Smalling, Jones, Young, Matic (Garner 78), A. Pereira, Chong, Gomes, Lingard, Martial.
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