Premier League preparations have started. Most of England’s top-flight clubs played their first friendly of pre-season this week and already we’ve been given a few hints of what to expect from the division’s biggest clubs.
Manchester City don’t start until the middle of next week, and we will learn more about Chelsea during the Premier League Summer Series on the East Coast of the USA. But the four matches played by the rest of the "Big Six" have provided some early insight into how things will shape up in August.
Alex Keble picks out key lessons from the opening week of Premier League friendlies – including a 24-minute masterclass from Crystal Palace’s Eberechi Eze.
Timber and Havertz add versatility
It was an unusual start to the summer for Arsenal, who breezed past an All-Stars team of MLS players managed by Wayne Rooney, who said afterwards that he had taken “absolutely nothing” from the match.
Mikel Arteta certainly did. After a relatively uneventful first half, defined chiefly by an excellent performance from Bukayo Saka, we got a first glimpse of Jurrien Timber while Kai Havertz also came off the bench. We learnt a lot about both players.
Timber inverted into central midfield during periods of Arsenal possession, as Oleksandr Zinchenko did last season, confirming the long-held suspicion that the new signing from Ajax will be used to give Arteta the option of flipping the formation around.
"He is a really versatile player," Arteta said of Timber after the encounter. "He gives you the capacity to invert and occupy different spaces. He's so comfortable on the ball in that phase.
"As well as that, he's got aggression in the duels and that dynamism which I really like. You saw with his first action, which was a high press, he won the ball straight away, won the duel and was ready to go.”
Arsenal could be a little too predictable in the second half of last season and Arteta is looking to address that by adding variety. Clearly having Timber invert from the opposite side to Zinchenko provides texture – as does having the versatile Havertz in the squad.
"He gives us something different with his quality and his height," Arteta said of Havertz, who played in the No 10 role against MLS All-Stars. "For example, he can be the target man if we need to beat the press. He's playing in the attacking midfield position for now but I'm sure throughout the season he'll be used in different positions."
Havertz's goal v MLS All-Stars
Touch. Set. Finish. pic.twitter.com/egRLVSMzQb
— Arsenal (@Arsenal) July 20, 2023
With Timber and Havertz, it looks like Arsenal have considerably improved their options in both defence and attack.
Postecoglou revolution begins to take shape
Results don’t matter at this stage of pre-season, and yet Tottenham Hotspur’s defeat to West Ham United did seem to reflect both the pros and the cons – the progression and the growing pains – that the Ange Postecoglou era could bring.
First things first, true to the new manager’s principles this was a very attacking performance. Spurs amassed an Expected Goals (xG) total of 2.78, held 71 per cent possession and had 30 shots.
They achieved this using the tactical ideas we had expected Postecoglou to bring over from Celtic - fast and risky attacking football in a 4-3-3 formation in which both full-backs move into central midfield.
Two inverted full-backs, rather than the more common one, is a Postecoglou hallmark Spurs fans can get used to. Against West Ham, Sergio Reguilon and Pedro Porro started in these roles, although notably Destiny Udogie was excellent tearing forward as a second-half substitute.
Herein lies the second insight from Postecoglou’s first match at Spurs: every player, it seems, will be given the chance to prove themselves. Giovani Lo Celso had a good match and got on the scoresheet, while Yves Bissouma started in a deep midfield role. There is a clean slate for those previously frozen out.
But it wasn’t all good news. Both goals Spurs conceded came from counter-attacks in which Postecoglou’s high line was beaten.
There will be teething problems, no doubt, and it will take some time for the players to understand the club’s new identity. Nevertheless the signs are positive.
“[Postecoglou] doesn’t speak a lot but you can see he knows football,” Udogie told Football.London in the build-up to the match, in which he scored Spurs' second goal. “He doesn’t need to speak too much, it’s good. I like his idea of football. He wants to play football with the ball.”
Van de Beek fills gap in absence of strikers
A neatly-taken volley from Donny van de Beek gave Manchester United a 1-0 victory against Lyon in their second pre-season friendly and thrust the Dutch midfielder back into the limelight in his first appearance for the club since January.
Van de Beek has been at Old Trafford for three years now but has never quite found his feet, in part due to frequent injury setbacks, and in an otherwise uneventful match the 26-year-old’s winner provided food for thought.
"For me personally it is a big moment," Van de Beek said. "Of course it is nice if you score a goal, but people who have experienced such a big injury will know I have waited so long for this moment.
"I know it is only a friendly but it is a massive moment for me. You realise you enjoy football so much."
His future remains in doubt, especially after Mason Mount – who played the first half against Lyon - joined the club from Chelsea earlier this month.
"For now, it's hard to say where my future is,” Van de Beek said. “I've come back now after injury and I'm fit now, so I play my first minutes after training for a few weeks, so I try to push as hard as possible.”
If Van de Beek can keep scoring in pre-season he will surely give Erik ten Hag a decision to make, not least because United’s victory over Lyon was another reminder that the club are short on goalscorers.
Injuries to Marcus Rashford and Anthony Martial meant United had to start without a striker, using Jadon Sancho in a central position with Antony and Amad Diallo either side. Here was further evidence of why Ten Hag is reportedly chasing Rasmus Hojlund of Atalanta.
Klopp’s 3-2-2-3 is here to stay as midfield issues arise
Liverpool's 4-2 win over German club Karlsruher was a haphazard match in keeping with the topsy-turvy football the Reds have played since moving to a 3-2-2-3 formation. But on this evidence Jurgen Klopp has no plans to abandon the shape that saw Liverpool go 11 fixtures undefeated at the end of last season.
Trent Alexander-Arnold finished the campaign in a role where he moved from right-back into central midfield, yet against Karlsruher he actually started as one of the named No 8s, with Conor Bradley inverting from right-back.
Klopp changed his whole team at half-time, but even with more youngsters on the pitch he persisted with the 3-2-2-3, strongly suggesting he aims to use this formation throughout the 2023/24 campaign.
Its success rests upon Klopp sorting out Liverpool’s central midfield. Encouragingly, Dominik Szoboszlai and Alexis Mac Allister both played well on their debuts. "In the first half, it was clear that the new boys were the best at counter-press," Klopp said to LFC TV. "The boss said go and they go." But Liverpool still looked light defensively.
Fabinho did not travel with the squad, with a move to Al-Ittihad rumoured to be getting closer, while Jordan Henderson appears to be heading to Al Ettifaq. That explains why Alexander-Arnold played in the middle, along with Bobby Clark in the first half and James McConnell in the second.
Despite having signed Szoboszlai and Mac Allister, reinforcements are required if Liverpool are to avoid taking one step forward only to move one step back.
Eze blitzes Crawley in 24 minutes
Ordinarily a routine 4-0 win for Palace at a League Two club would fly under the radar, but Eze deserves a special mention for his brilliant strike – and for assisting the other three goals, all within the first 24 minutes of the match.
Eze, who played a huge part in Palace’s revival under Roy Hodgson last season by scoring six goals in 10 matches, has picked up where he left off with a ridiculously effective opening half-hour of pre-season.
