Manchester United 2:2 Steven Gerrard's Villa (Sat 23rd July, 10:45 UK time)

Yagami

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We need Frenkie in on this alongside Martinez and Eriksen. He will take us to a new level. The composure and control he’ll bring is something none of our other central midfielders can offer.
 

Adamsk7

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I know players need more than 45 mins now but this pitch is so dreadful I’d get this team off at half time. Think it’s more important we get through the game with no injuries

especially the Sancho/Martial/Rashford trio
 

bosnian_red

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The only 2 pre seasons we've had remotely close to this since probably 2010 was that 11/12 pre season and then Van Gaals pre season. Genuinely been excellent football and good intensity, and playing as a team.
 

Bobski

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Considering the pitch we are doing pretty well. VdB does absolutely nothing though.
He is playing very high, a couple of nice first touch passes when the ball gets to him but struggling to get on the ball consistently.
 

Samid

He's no Bilal Ilyas Jhandir
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Have they had an extremely wet summer? No excuses for having a pitch like this in a country where the sun generally is beaming down all day.
 

rimaldo

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donny looks like a ‘make a wish’ kid and plays like one.
 

Champ

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VDB is completely lost out there, an absolute passenger.
 

TheReligion

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Have they had an extremely wet summer? No excuses for having a pitch like this in a country where the sun generally is beaming down all day.
I wondered why they were wearing coats on this tour myself to be honest. You make a great point. Could be the impact of global warming I imagine.
 

bosnian_red

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Donny a bit of a 0 at this point. Our build up very Bruno centric so you have Shaw and rashford a lot more involved than Sancho and Dalot.

Swap Donny for Eriksen here... Much more of a 433 and less a 4231
 

AjaxCunian

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Great to hear!

I like what I’m seeing of him on the training pitch too. He seems to have that aura about him?

How do you see Martinez, Eriksen and hopefully De Jong fitting in to the PL?
He does, he really demands the most of players and seems to have a very good idea of how to coach it into the players.

I think they'll all do really well, they were some of the best players in good Ajax teams so they are ballers. Martinez might miss some height and Eriksen might miss some speed. But they are modern, gifted players, tactically strong and willing to follow the instructions of the manager. I think Martinez will surprise many, and de Jong when used correctly is just a top 10, maybe top 5 midfielder in the world. No one knows how to use him better than Erik Ten Hag.