The first day of Everton pre-season will focus on player assessments
Everton manager David Moyes during the Premier League match at Fulham. Photo by Shaun Brooks - CameraSport via Getty Images
Everton manager David Moyes during the Premier League match at Fulham. Photo by Shaun Brooks - CameraSport via Getty Images
Everton’s first team players will begin the return to Finch Farm this morning. Six weeks since the impressive win at Newcastle United marked the end of the last campaign, the first-team will be back together as pre-season gets underway.
As standard, day one will see the club’s backroom staff carrying out assessments of the players’ fitness as they pick up after the close season.
The return will mark the latest landmark in an historic, and intense, summer for the club. The senior men’s team ended last season with the emotional farewell to Goodison Park and will now have to prepare for life in a new home on the Liverpool waterfront.
The transition from the home of 133 years to the stunning Hill Dickinson Stadium is playing on the mind of manager David Moyes, who had hoped to start exposing his players to the new ground at the end of the last season.
Instead he will have to wait until August 9 for the showcase first match there for his team, with Roma set to visit for the Blues’ final pre-season friendly.
Before then, friendlies at Accrington Stanley and Blackburn Rovers will mark the first warm-up matches of pre-season, with Everton then heading out to the USA.
The club will face Manchester United, Bournemouth and West Ham United in the Premier League Summer Series, with matches in New Jersey, Chicago and Atlanta.
The return to Finch Farm will see Jarrad Branthwaite link up with his teammates fresh from signing a new five-year deal with the club. He, like James Tarkowski and Tim Iroegbunam, ended the season with injury but Tarkowski’s was the absence of most severity, with Moyes accepting the hamstring injury he picked up against Manchester City could impact his pre-season.
Carlos Alcaraz will return as a permanent signing after his loan spell from Flamengo led to Everton securing his stay at the club. But a number of key figures from last season will not be there. Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Abdoulaye Doucoure, Ashley Young, Asmir Begovic and Joao Virginia have all left. The club is in advanced talks with Idrissa Gueye and Michael Keane over new deals.