Starting XI: Lloris; Naughton, Dier, Kaboul, Rose; Bentaleb, Holtby, Eriksen, Lamela, Lennon; Adebayor. Subs: Friedel, Fredericks, Fryers, Davies, Veljkovic, Sandro, Carroll, Ceballos, Townsend, Kane, Soldado. We're back to having no holding players, again. Where's Capoue? I assume Dawson's injury in the last game has kept him out. Looking a little light at the back. I've not been impressed with the end of our pre-season preparation. We haven't given some of our players nearly enough game time.
Nice to see no sign of paulinho though. Pleased to see bentaleb starting, and interesting to see dier getting a go Personally i think bentaleb and holtby is solid enough.
I've just realised that Vorm's not involved. Seems rather silly. We could virtually field a team of those that aren't there. Vorm; Walker, Chiriches, Vertonghen, Assou-Ekotto; Capoue, Dembele; Pritchard, Paulinho, Chadli; Obika/Coulibaly. A bit dodgy up front, admittedly.
Clarke Carlisle is appalling, but he's still better than Andy Townsend or Michael Owen. Lennon looks simultaneously dangerous and unsure of what the hell he's doing, somehow.
Poor first touch from Adebayor or he'd have scored then, I think. Their defender's come off badly from the tackle too, which is not what we want to see in a friendly or any other game, really. No injuries, please.
22 minutes til we have anything like a proper go at goal and Bentaleb's shot screws well wide. We're dominating possession but not creating a lot. It's like Villas-Boas is back!
I know it's pre-season and it's early on, but Schalke don't look massively impressive, do they? They're missing a few players, but it seems like quite a drop off from the top two German sides.
Schalke's high line looks even more dodgy than ours did last season. Lennon wrongly called offside and there's been a number of narrow calls. Boateng gets a shot off and it's deflected wide. We've not really looked troubled at the back, bar the odd moment. Set-pieces still seem a bit dodgy.
