Premier League Sides Can Start Pre-Season Badly, But Later Results Can Affect Early Season Form

Manchester United fans didn’t have much to cheer about last season, but this pre-season, they have plenty of reasons to feel more positive.

Three straight wins and eleven goals scored, a 4-0 thumping of rivals Liverpool, and last season’s misfiring strikeforce of Anthony Martial, Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho all getting on the scoresheet means that new boss Erik Ten Hag is having a dream honeymoon period down in Australia.

But pre-season is very different from August 7 when the real business begins.

Manchester United’s good pre-season results so far could be partly due to their early start, meaning they are slightly further ahead of their opponents when it comes to fitness. In the Liverpool match, for example, Jurgen Klopp ended up using more than 30 players.

Long-distance tours are also influenced by jet-lag, acclimatization, and in Crystal Palace’s case, entry restrictions meaning some players can’t join in the matches.

Last season, at least nine pre-season matches involving Premier League sides were cancelled due to COVID-19.

Having a match cancelled might be even worse than losing a game.

Pre-season is all about preparation, and cancelled matches mean clubs might not be as prepared as they would like to be. The clubs who had matches cancelled last season, including Arsenal, Manchester City, Aston Villa and Norwich City all got off to relatively bad starts.

This could be a concern for Crystal Palace head coach Patrick Vieira, who has effectively had to split his team in two as stars like Wilfred Zaha, Marc Guehi and Eberechi Eze couldn’t travel to Australia.

Liverpool fans might not be too happy about that 4-0 defeat to Manchester United, but they will be pleased to see new signing Darwin Nunez score four goals against RB Leipzig.

Pre-season goals don’t mean too much though. Last season’s joint-top goalscorer Mohamed Salah scored no pre-season goals in 2021.

In fact, out of the ten top goalscorers last season, six didn’t score for their clubs in pre-season. On the other hand, Chelsea’s Hakim Ziyech scored more goals in pre-season than he did in the Premier League in 2021/22.

But pre-season results shouldn’t be written off entirely, none of the teams who lost three or more pre-season games last season got off to a good start.

The matches that are played just before the start of the season are especially important.

In those final warm-up games, squads should be settled and matches are more about tactics than fitness levels. The teams who ended pre-season well last season generally started the season better than those who ended pre-season poorly.

Tottenham Hotspur for example, drew with Chelsea and beat Arsenal in their final two pre-season matches before winning their opening three games. Arsenal on the other hand lost to Spurs and Chelsea, and started the season with three defeats.

West Ham United’s strong start to the season came on the back of wins over Atalanta, Brentford and Celtic, whereas Norwich and Wolves lost their final pre-season games and started the season with three losses each. Norwich’s pre-season, which featured lower-league sides apart from their final match against Newcastle, might have in hindsight not been the best preparation for a newly-promoted side looking to get used to Premier League soccer.

Manchester City won the Premier League last season, but started relatively slowly. Two of their three defeats came in their opening ten games, including an opening day loss to Spurs. This came after they lost in the Community Shield to Leicester City, which was effectively their final pre-season game.

Manchester United fans shouldn’t be getting too excited yet, and Everton fans shouldn’t worry too much about their loss to Minnesota United. But if Frank Lampard’s team lose their final pre-season game against Dynamo Kyiv, then that could be a sign that Everton will start the season poorly.