This weekend is another busy one for pre-season friendlies, with six more games to summarise here.
This set of Scout Notes takes in the matches from Saturday daytime.
Vissel Kobe 2-3 Tottenham Hotspur
Goals: Pedro Porro, Son Heung-min, Mikey Moore
Assists: Dejan Kulusevski, Brennan Johnson, Jamie Donley
More of the same from Ange-led Spurs, who score plenty and concede almost as many.
The Lilywhites’ head coach made a few tactical tweaks here, moving Son Heung-min (£10.0m) to the left (he led the line against QPR last weekend) and sticking Dejan Kulusevski (£6.5m) up front.
That was partly explained by not just Richarlison (£7.0m) being injured but Timo Werner (£6.5m) also falling to illness.
Nevertheless, Kulusevski – who has recaptured some form this month – did very well in an unusual role. It was his backheel that set up Pedro Porro (£5.5m) for Spurs’ opener, the right-back yet again popping up in an advanced position.
Son then scored from a Brennan Johnson (£6.5m) cross, the two having almost combined for a Johnson goal earlier.
“Sonny did well today. He scored playing left wing, he scored when he’s in the middle. There’s only one Sonny so I can only play him in one position. So depending on where we need him, we’ll play him there. He’s started pre-season really well and I’m pleased for him that he could get a goal.
“We played Deki through the middle like we did last year, but obviously with Richy out and Timo was unwell today, we were a little bit short in that front third.
“We’ve got a clear plan of what we need to do in this transfer period and that’s what we’re working towards and we know the areas we need to strengthen and the clear focus is on that.” – Ange Postecoglou
One positive you would say about Spurs is that most of their attackers (even the injured Richarlison) have had the summer off. Will they be fresher throughout the season than their counterparts at rival clubs and more in rhythm in Gameweek 1 as a result of more friendly appearances? Time will tell.
Porro is the only one of the regular back four to have featured in pre-season, however. Destiny Udogie (£5.0m) remains unfit, while Micky van de Ven (£4.5m) and Cristian Romero (£5.0m) had a delayed return from international duty.
A right-back and a central midfielder were the starting centre-halves here, which is far from ideal.
Tottenham Hotspur XI: Vicario (Austin 46); Porro (Spence 64), Royal (Phillips 64), Gray (Abbott 64), Davies (Donley 46); Sarr (Devine 64), Bissouma (Bergvall 46), Maddison (Skipp 46); Kulusevski (Lankshear 65), Son (Solomon 58), Johnson (Moore 58).
Hull City 0-2 Newcastle United
Goals: Isak, J Murphy
Assists: J Murphy, J Miley
Alexander Isak (£8.5m) made it two goals from two starts in pre-season with the opener at Hull.
The Swede prodded in a Jacob Murphy (£5.5m) cross, with the impressive winger then inadvertently adding a second when his low cross avoided any touch and trickled in.
So long as Isak avoids injury himself, a Gameweek 1 start looks assured after Eddie Howe provided the latest update on positional rival Callum Wilson (£7.0m).
“Callum had an injection in his back. Without going into too much detail on the injury, I think it was a bulge in his disc which needed treatment so he had that operation and I think he may miss the start of the season.
“But thankfully there are not too many games at the start – we’re week to week so hopefully he won’t miss too many.” – Eddie Howe
Meanwhile, Howe also revealed that England duo Anthony Gordon (£7.5m) and Kieran Trippier (£6.0m) would rejoin their club teammates after this week’s tour to Japan.
Fabian Schar (£5.5m) and Miguel Almiron (£6.0m) are already back with the group following their own international commitments. Sean Longstaff (£5.0m), Joe Willock (£5.0m) and Lloyd Kelly (£4.5m), not risked on Humberside, should be fit to travel to Asia.
Tino Livramento (£4.5m) made his first appearance of the summer, getting an hour at right-back. Another name we usually see at full-back, Lewis Hall (£4.5m), was used here in central midfield. It’s needs must at the moment with the number of absentees in the engine room, so we’re not anticipating an ‘OOP’ situation to develop.
Nick Pope (£5.0m) looked sharp, too, making one superb stop in the first half. A fully fit and firing Pope might be worth a few extra clean sheets for the Magpies this season.
Newcastle United XI: Pope (Vlachodimos 74), Livramento (A. Harrison 64), Krafth, Burn, Lewis (Munda 74), Hall (Charlton 85), Joelinton (Sanusi 64), J. Miley (Stanton 79), J. Murphy (Emerson 74), Isak (Parkinson 64), Barnes (Turner-Cooke 64).
Crawley Town 3-6 Crystal Palace
Goals: Edouard, Rak-Sakyi x2, Kamada, Ayew, Schlupp
Assists: Kamada, Edouard x2, Richards, Hughes
Goals galore for Palace, who admittedly were only facing some League One new boys. Still, Oliver Glasner’s side looked just as swaggering against the Premier League elite in 2023/24.
They didn’t need to do much to race into an early lead here, although their high press was to be commended. Two Crawley mistakes were punished by Odsonne Edouard (£5.5m) and Jesurun Rak-Sakyi (£4.5m), with Edouard spurning two more chances from similar forced errors in the first half.
Daichi Kamada (£5.5m) added a third when dribbling around the home ‘keeper. Having started the last friendly in the engine room, he was here in the position we expect him to feature most in this season: attacking midfield. It’s the role Michael Olise vacated; big boots to fill but a decent enough start to his Eagles career.
Rak-Sakyi added another before the break, with both him and Edouard impressing. They’re both very much back-up choices in their respective positions, as their FPL prices betray. Keep an eye on a prospective move for Rak-Sakyi from Southampton, however: you won’t find many £4.5m midfielders more attacking than him.
Old Hodgson favourites Jordan Ayew (£5.5m) – again profiting from some kamikaze defending – and Jeffrey Schlupp (£5.0m) rounded off the Palace scoring after the break.
Palace got in on the own-foot-shooting, with Joachim Andersen (£4.5m) and Joel Ward (£4.5m) falling over in possession to present Crawley with their second and third goals.
Crystal Palace XI: Johnstone, Clyne, Richards (Holding 60), Andersen (Umeh 60), Riad (Ward 45), Mitchell, Hughes, Doucouré (Ahamada 45), Rak-Sakyi (Ayew 60), Edouard (Schlupp 60), Kamada (Ebiowei 85).
Salford City 2-1 Everton
Goal: Garner
Assist: Chermiti
Not the greatest-looking score on paper but some mitigation in the fact that Salford’s two goals were scored when many of Everton’s academy products were on the pitch.
The Toffees were also deprived of several key players through injury.
An entire backline of James Tarkowski (£5.0m), Vitalii Mykolenko (£4.5m), Jarrad Branthwaite (£5.0m) and Nathan Patterson (£4.5m) were absent again, while Jordan Pickford (£5.0m) is not yet back from the Euros.
Idrissa Gana Gueye (£5.0m) and new boy Iliman Ndiaye (£5.5m) were also missing.
“Tarky’s coming through things at the moment, so that’s good. Gana, we had to be careful with, but he’s coming through things and Myko’s the same.
“Ili is another knock, nothing too serious, so he should be back around it next week.
“Jarrad’s making steps forwards. He’s not ready yet. He won’t be back next week but should be after that.
“The main message is they are not serious injuries but at this stage of pre-season when they’ve done a lot of work we have to be careful, hence why we took the main group of players off here as they are getting fitter and stronger after a big week, which they have had.” – Sean Dyche
Absences can’t explain yet more wasteful finishing from the Everton attack, of course. Beto (£5.0m) and Dominic Calvert-Lewin (£6.0m), again used in a Burnley-style front two, were as profligate as ever. The Everton forward who has most impressed this summer is Youssef Chermiti (£5.0m), whose trickery here won the free-kick that James Garner (£5.0m) converted. Dyche does seem to have his ‘favourites’ more than most (eg Calvert-Lewin), so it remains to be seen just how much Chermiti has to do to force his way up the pecking order.
Dyche going with a strike partnership again meant Abdoulaye Doucoure (£5.5m) in a deeper role, part of a central midfield two.
Everton XI: Virginia (Tyrer 60), Coleman (Dixon 46), Keane (Welch 60), Holgate (Onyango 60), Young (Campbell 46), Garner (Metcalfe 73), Doucoure (Iroegbunam 60), Harrison (Armstrong 60), McNeil (Okoronkwo 60), Calvert-Lewin (Maupay 60), Beto (Chermiti 46).
Ipswich Town 1-2 Fortuna Dusseldorf
Goal: Harness
Assist: Chaplin
Ipswich have problems in the wide areas with less than three weeks to go before the season starts.
Kieran McKenna revealed on Saturday that Nathan Broadhead (£5.0m), a regular in the promotion-winning season, is out for “a couple of months minimum” with a hamstring injury.
Ipswich were dealt a further blow when Wes Burns (£5.0m) limped out of the loss to Fortuna Dusseldorf. Further assessment is needed on him.
Omari Hutchinson (£5.5m), yet to feature since making his move permanent, is at least on the mend.
“Nathan is seeing a specialist with a hamstring injury. There’s no surgery required, which in many ways is a positive. It means that the recovery could hopefully be shorter, but it’s still going to be a couple of months minimum.
“Omari has a little niggle. He’s better today, so we’re hoping that he’ll train today and be involved with the games next weekend.
“Wes [Burns] rolled his ankle in a collision [v Fortuna Dusseldorf], so we’ll have to check on how he is.” – Kieran McKenna
Midfielder Cameron Humphreys (£4.5m), right-back Harry Clarke (£4.0m) and striker Ali Al-Hamadi (£5.0m) are “weeks” away, too. They likely wouldn’t have started in Gameweek 1 regardless.
The Tractor Boys’ opponents are two weeks ahead of Town in terms of pre-season, kicking off their Bundesliga II campaign next week. The extra sharpness showed at times.
Marcus Harness (£5.0m) came on for Burns and scored. A peripheral figure last season, he may get some early-season minutes if the winger crisis continues – but Ipswich will surely recruit soon in an area where they are sorely lacking. Jaden Philogene (£5.5m) was a target before he moved to Villa.
New signings Ari Muric (£4.5m), Ben Johnson (£4.0m), Jacob Greaves (£4.0m) and Liam Delap (£5.5m) all started. Johnson was again the conservative full-back, allowing hipster Fantasy favourite Leif Davis (£4.5m) his usual attacking freedom down the left.
“We wanted to put all four of the boys who haven’t played here before into the starting lineup today to get them acclimatised as soon as possible.
“We wanted to throw them all in today. We always knew that there were going to be little bits of understanding of wave-length issues, but that’s natural when players come in, so we’ll work on that.” – Kieran McKenna
Ipswich Town XI: Muric (Walton 46); Johnson (Barbrook 80), Edmundson (Woolfenden 46), Greaves (Burgess 46), Davis (Baggott 66); Morsy, Luongo (Ladapo 66); Burns (Harness 31), Chaplin (Ayinde 88), Taylor; Delap (Hirst 46)
Fulham 6-1 Watford
Goals: Lukic pen, Muniz, Iwobi, Jimenez, Stansfield, Pajaziti
Assists: Muniz, Iwobi, King, Wilson, Jimenez x2
Another behind-closed-doors friendly for Fulham and another one where no footage exists.
The Cottagers didn’t even provide the line-up information for the game, although the long list of scorers and assisters offers some clues.
Interestingly, Sasa Lukic (£5.0m) took a first-half spot-kick that had been won by Rodrigo Muniz (£6.0m). The expected departure of Willian – his contract is up and he hasn’t signed another – means there’s a penalty-taking role to be claimed at the Cottage. Of the current squad, Andreas Pereira (£5.5m) was the last to take one for Fulham almost two years ago. The Brazilian was presumably not involved on Saturday after his Copa America duties.
Lukic, by no means an assured starter, has actually taken penalties before for Torino in Italy.
Muniz did later get on the scoresheet after converting a pass from Alex Iwobi (£5.5m). The Nigerian then added a third before the break.