Steady progress against willing opposition with one or two scares but nothing too onerous. It'll be interesting to see how John & McKay do this season , imo John is better going forward than defending and boy is he quick and McKay looks up for it (atm) ,I'm confident that we'll be ok again this season , maybe not promotion contenders but that's ok for me
Funny how we see games, I thought Mckay was awful and way off it last night when he came on. still hope he proves me totally wrong. My biggest worry is we still look so shaky defensively and slightly better oppositions will cause us a lot of problems, would like to see a decent centre half coming in, we only have Rodon and VDH who imo are good enough and surely you cant go in to a season with just those 2.
You're right ,its all about opinions and long may it continue , I thought when he came forward he looked decent enough maybe tried too hard on occasion ? I agree defensively I'm not sure how we'll cope against bigger stronger attackers when defending set pieces , VDH doesn't seem to have the ability to jump and Joe well he's still learning , if Cooper can get this area sorted out then I stand by my prediction of steady progress , We may become a "Keegan Newcastle team " we score 3 the opposition 2
Nathan Dyer has been our best player in pre-season. His determination is immense - he never gives up.
I am off on my pre-season from tomorrow. A day at Lords watching the 2nd day of England v Ireland. Who knows I may get to witness Ireland beating England in 2 days! Then off to Crete for a break as it’s too cold here
Stuart James reports that Wilmot was at Fairwood yesterday, signing announced today. Watch this space
Ok, without looking it up on Google, in which city do Atalanta play their home games? They finished third in Serie A last season
They reached the Coppa Italia semi-final losing to Juventus 2-0. I know it’s pre-season but this will be a tough test
Ok, nobody knows. It's Bergamo. You can fly there with Ryanair thinking you are going to Milan. As in Milan (Bergamo). But it's 35 miles away.
No Routledge or Byers for Swansea - both are believed to have slight knocks. Swansea City: Erwin Mulder; Connor Roberts, Mike van der Hoorn, Joe Rodon, Jake Bidwell; Jay Fulton, Matt Grimes (captain); Nathan Dyer, Bersant Celina, Barrie McKay; Oli McBurnie. Subs: Kristoffer Nordfeldt, Joel Asoro, Ben Wilmot, Declan John, Borja Baston, Yan Dhanda, Kyle Naughton, Jack Evans.