These pre-season friendlies really are just training games to get the players up to full fitness and give the new head coach Andoni Iraola the opportunity to see them in action and working on his new strategies.
As such, this isn’t going to be a match preview as we would normally publish ahead of competitive game. Instead, let’s look at the fringe players who are likely to feature in Wednesday night’s game at the Yankee Stadium. We say Wednesday night, but it kicks off at 12.30am BST, so it’s officially Thursday, I guess.
Kieran Morrison and Lewis Koumas shone in Saturday night’s 4-2 win over Sunderland, and we’d expect them to be on form again for this one. Rio Ngumoha will also get another chance to prove himself to the new boss ahead of the upcoming Premier League season in less than four weeks time.
It won’t be all youngsters though. Iraola will make use of his substitutes and give playing time to some of the first team too, as they return to full fitness.
Don’t expect to see Jeremy Jacquet feature in this one, although he is expected to play some part in Sunday’s game against Leeds.
We’ve been working on a score prediction game for the new season. It’s fairly basic, but will give us the opportunity to give away some prizes through the season. For now, please help us test it by making your prediction and adding time of first goal (as this will be used as a tiebreaker).
