Pre-Season 2024/25

Sunderland bringing 2000 apparently.
My lad is ball boy and supposed to be sat in front of block E of the away end so it's been mentioned in the pre match memo for the lads on duty.

 

I do expect that we will field a very strong lineup but I’m not sure the team that we will face will give us a proper test.
A bit like last season people saying a 2-2 draw with Boro was a good marker when in fact a few weeks later in the cup they battered us and thus showed we had a very poor squad not up to the standard required to win promotion from league 2.
I suppose what I wanted from tonight’s game was a very strong opposition and us setting up trying to win the game as if it was a league game. That way you can see what needs tweaking so close to start of season.
Same next week at Alteincham.

 

Reckon tonight will be the best 11 available to us, good chance to get some fluidity in the team against Sunderland's backups. Sunderland manager in todays paper has said that it will likely be 11 changes, sounds like the lads who played last Saturday either aren't involved tonight or will have little involvement and it's the back ups and dev team.

Looks like it might well be a hot one at kick off, BBC weather has the feels like temp at 24 degrees.

 

Just read the T&A article from Simon Parker.

Alexander has confirmed that the 2 trialists are no longer with us, at very least I suspect the goalkeeper was brought in to have a 3rd keeper over there for the purposes of training numbers and he was never a signing we were looking at. It mentions we have another trialist in at the moment but he won't be involved tonight. He also confirms he will be looking at getting 75+ minutes into the majority of the players with maybe a couple staying on for the 90.
I'd expect the starting 11 will be close to how he is thinking we will line up against MK with those short of minutes like Halliday coming off earlier.

 

We need to be moving towards looking at playing a full 11 but I've also got doubts around what we have been up against and how under cooked we may be.

I've not known a pre season like this before but by the time the league season kicks off we will have played against...

Chorley from national league north
Guiseley from national league north
Sv reids youth team
Sunderland development/back up squad
Altrincham from national league

I'm sorry but I don't think that will have us prepped for a crack at one of the league favourites first up

 

This is my point exactly. Whilst preseason games ‘don’t matter’ they should get you prepared for the season ahead and the opposition we’ve faced so far certainly won’t have tested us.
I think secretly BCFC will be furious that Sunderland are fielding their reserve team tonight.

 

Maybe even more so given we are doing them a massive favour on Saturday

 

Sunderland's squad tonight will have a fair few players who played for them in the Championship last season so I don't think it will be a bad side.
We've also had 2 60 minute games against Sheffield United and a match against Leeds U23s.

Comparing it to the 12/13 pre-season which didn't result in a bad season we played:

• Tadcaster (NCEL Premier)
• Wexford Youths (Irish 1st Division)
• Bray Wanderers (Irish Premier)
• Guiseley (National League North)
• Bury (League 1)
• BPA (National League North)

 

Pitch looks stupendous!!!!

 

Agree. The other challenge being we haven't played our first eleven together. We don't want to walking out at MK like a bunch of strangers.

 

S Walker, Byrne, Baldwin, Kelly, Halliday, Smallwood, Wright, Sarcevic, Pattison, Kavanagh, Cook.

 

Probably our best 11? Maybe Walker in the midfield? Maybe Young over Kav? But those are areas we are fairly stocked at the minute so competition is obvious and good.

Byrne and Baldwin on paper is the weakest area. You never know, something might click and the back 3 suddenly bring the best out in each other?.....

..... nearly grabbed this straw.

 

As Birky Bantam alludes to that looks very much like our starting eleven for the MK Dons game first game of the season.

 

Sunderland reserves is annoying.

 

Is it?

 

Id have rather played their better players not the players they don’t want.

 

OK.
I'm not bothered, it's pre season and they've got some very capable players in their squad by the looks of it

 

Swap Stubbs for Baldwin and Walker for Pattison andvthats probably our starting line up.

 

Stubbs is better than all 3 of the back line do for me he can take over for any of them.

The slight worry is that Byrne in the short clips I've seen looks as mobile as Stubbs so perhaps it'll have to be Baldwin in that RCB role?