Initial Pre-Season Thoughts

Players from the Big Four will inevitably dominate many players' selections with Rooney/Ronaldo, Liverpool/Chelsea block defences and Gerrard/Lampard midfield options featuring in the vast majority of teams. However, the new pricing structure will nullify all those players who, in 06/07, simply plumped for a Liverpool D, Ronaldo, Gerrard, Lampard and sat back and watched the points roll in.

This year, the choice between who to pick from the top end of the budget has never been tougher. Indeed, hunting down a bargain at the bottom end of the player lists will require a huge amount of skill and know-how. In particular, knowledge of new additions and players from the newly-promoted clubs will prove key.

Traditionally, little can be gained from pre-season friendlies. However, those players with a keen eye will pick up on a series of strikers coming into form for the big kick-off. Indeed, when seeking to sniff out a bargain, players will need to cast a careful eye over who is getting the nod for a starting position- particuarly in defences.

One of the key questions currently is "who will fill the full-back positions for the big four?" As full-backs often represent some early value for clean-sheet hunters players will need help in identifying those all-important members of the Premiership starting XIs the pre-season friendlies present early clues.

At the time of writing, I expect the following to be filling the full-back positions of the Big Four come kick-off time:

Man Utd: Brown (in Neville's continued absence) and Evra
Chelsea: Cole and Ben Haim/Johnson (not Paulo Ferreira as the papers continue to predict)
Liverpool: Riise (pending an end to the Heinze saga) and Finnan
Arsenal: Sanga (with Eboue now to be used on the right side of midfield) and Clichy

Apropos to nothing, here are some players who have shown pre-season form, and look fit and sharp at this early stage:

Koumas, Ashton (back from injury with a well-taken goal against Torino), Benni McCarthy, Gamst Pedersen, Berbatov, Keane, Rooney, Van Persie, Micah Richards, Rosicky, Luke Moore(!), Bendtnar, Samba, Barry, Drogba and one of my all-time favourites, Patrick "with relish" Berger.

Those to avoid at this stage include Michael Owen, who will miss the start of the new season, Paul Scholes (injured in the Far East), Tim Cahill (injured in pre-season), Wayne Bridge (injured), Joey Barton (in the dock/under the knife) Ballack/Robben (on their way?), Obafemi Martins (AWOL?) Ghaly (out of favour all over the shop), Kieron Dyer (ditto), Louis Saha (always injured), Gary Neville (ditto- despite threatening a comeback), Emanuele Pogatetz (surgery), Ben Foster (surgery), Park Ji-Sung (out for the season?), Stelios (injured) and Jimmy Bullard (recommended but slowly on the comeback trail).

A watching brief should be kept on the Community Shield this Sunday. The game will reveal a lot about the full-back situations at both clubs and the relative fitness of both squads.