Who’s impressed most for Everton in their pre-season so far?

  • last year
Any takes from what we’ve seen so far from Everton?

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00:00 Will, just on Everton's pre-season, obviously a big pre-season, we know how important it's going to be for them to start the season well under Sean Dyche.
00:08 Who's impressed you so far, if anyone, and what have you taken from their few pre-season games so far?
00:15 It's been difficult to assess Everton's pre-season so far. They are unbeaten.
00:20 They started in the A&As in the Swiss side in their opening game, that was pretty much a run out.
00:27 It's been difficult to gauge because they played Wigan, everyone but I've actually only played 90 minutes in that one.
00:33 They played Bolton on Tuesday evening and eight senior players played 45 minutes.
00:42 The likes of Jordan Pickford, Abzalay Takora, Idris Aghani, were left out of those.
00:47 There have been players missing like Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Amazuel Onar, who's only played 45 minutes.
00:53 Vitaly Mikhalenko hasn't played yet because he's come back from injury.
00:56 It's been hard to properly assess things but I think a lot of focus has been on Everton being fit.
01:02 At the heart of time at Bolton, the players who come off, they were doing extra fitness work before they went and had the showers etc.
01:09 That shows that Sean Dyche, maybe, if he knows that Everton can't beat teams on pure quality and flair,
01:19 then they'll just have to work on battle teams. It looks like a lot of players are embracing that.
01:25 In terms of players so far, Dwight McNeil started brightly, obviously ended last season really strongly.
01:31 He came alive after reuniting with Sean Dyche and working together at Burnley.
01:39 Arthur Obie hasn't done too bad but he's lacked a little bit of end product in the past couple of games, especially at Bolton.
01:49 He's looked encouraging. Ashley Young has looked at pretty much what you expect from experienced, plenty of Nelson know-how and took us goal well against Wigan.
02:01 It's probably too early. I think Everton next play Stoke on Saturday and that's when we'll really start to gauge where they are.
02:12 This is going to be the first test against a championship team. I think Sean Dyche plays the kids in the second half against Bolton,
02:21 Bar, Michael Keane, then Coffey come off the bench. I think he'll want this Stoke game to be a real good test for Everton to see where they are.
02:30 Then he plays Sporting Lisbon and that'll be the final dress rehearsal before the Open game this season.
02:35 Some players who have done well so far and we're just waiting now on seeing the others like Calvert-Lewin, Dan D'Urmer,
02:44 who we want a first glimpse of and Michalenko getting back. Will we see Dele Alli potentially at some point in pre-season?
02:51 Then the three players I beg your pardon who have been away, Damari Gray, how much he features in the pre-season plans, we don't know.
03:01 There's a lot of speculation around his future and James Garner and Jarrod Bramfield will be looking for opportunities.
03:08 I think now the last two games we'll be able to gauge better where Everton are.

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