A flurry of £4.0m defenders, an eye-catching display from cult-hero-in-the-making Anton Stach (£5.0m), and more Leeds United goalkeeper uncertainty – but there’s no sign of Martin Dubravka (£4.0m).
Saturday was our last look at Burnley and Leeds before the 2025/26 Premier League season starts.
Distilling today’s pre-season friendlies into some Fantasy takeaways, here are our latest Scout Notes.
BURNLEY 0-1 LAZIO
PARKER ON DUBRAVKA’S ABSENCE
Burnley’s midweek capture of Dubravka sparked a massive surge in interest in the Slovakian. He’s now the second-most-owned goalkeeper in FPL.
With a question mark over a recent injury, there was hope that the veteran shot-stopper would get some minutes in Saturday’s clash with Lazio to assuage any fitness fears.
Alas, neither he nor fellow new arrivals Armando Broja and Lesley Ugochukwu played a part.
It looks like it’ll be a close call for Gameweek 1, too, with Ugochuwku seemingly the closest to involvement.
“I suppose it just depends on how this week goes, really. Two of them have been training on their own a little bit, and the same with Martin really. So, obviously, the load is still an early part of it and we don’t want to take any risks that will obviously put those players at risk.
“Lesley played today, 60 minutes, in an in-house game. In terms of his workloads, he’s probably a little bit closer, but like always, we’ll just obviously see how we go over the next week or so to then work out where we go on the weekend.” – Scott Parker on Lesley Ugochukwu, Armando Broja and Martin Dubravka
Staking a claim in Dubravka’s absence, Max Weiß (£4.5m) saved a second-half penalty and tipped a header over. He and Václav Hladký (£4.0m) got 45 minutes apiece.
£4.0M WING-BACKS CATCH THE EYE
Scott Parker set his side up in a 5-4-1/3-4-3 for this one, a tactic that the Clarets could very well employ against Tottenham Hotspur next weekend.
All bar one of the back five cost £4.0m, with Kyle Walker (£4.5m) playing as a right-sided centre-half alongside Maxime Esteve (£4.0m) and Hjalmar Ekdal (£4.0m). Catching the eye were the two wing-backs, Quilindschy Hartman (£4.0m) and Oliver Sonne (£4.0m).
Sonne didn’t start a single game in the Championship last season. Neither did Ekdal, who was farmed out on loan. But with right-back Connor Roberts (£4.5m) injured and centre-back CJ Egan-Riley exiting, they’ve been given a chance to impress in pre-season.
Sonne was very attacking, hitting the bar with one close-range header and seeing two more back-post chances taken off his forehead at the last moment.
Hartman, meanwhile, looks to have struck up a good relationship with Jaidon Anthony (£5.5m) down the left. On one occasion, the defender was the furthest man forward when Walker pinged a diagonal up top, while he was denied a good shooting chance when Anthony took the ball off his toes.
Hartman was on corners, too, in a further boost to his appeal. The Netherlands international is certainly the safer bet of the two wing-backs, with Roberts not thought to be out for long.
CLARETS UNLUCKY
This was actually a decent performance from Burnley, who were on top in the first half, especially. They reduced Lazio to few chances, too, with the visitors’ breakaway winner coming from a Clarets set piece.
Anthony was the liveliest of the attackers, twice hitting the bar (once with a cross) and setting up Sonne for the header that he hit the woodwork with.
Josh Laurent (£5.0m) and Lyle Foster (£5.0m) are the likely Ugochukwu and Broja placeholders.
Burnley XI: Hladky (Weiß 46), Walker (Edwards 69), Ekdal (Worrall 76), Esteve, Sonne (Koleosho 69), Cullen, Laurent, Hartman (Pires 69), Hannibal, Anthony (Bruun Larsen 69), Foster (Tchaouna 69).
LEEDS UNITED 1-1 AC MILAN
Goal: Stach
Assist: Gruev
RE: STACH
There’s a crispy realisation that Anton Stach (£5.0m) might be a very good signing for Leeds indeed.
He’s looked a cut above in pre-season and this was his best performance yet, even discounting the slightly fortunate cross-shot goal that he scored.
Stach arrived with a reputation as a potential ‘defensive contributions’ (DC/defcon) monster. We’ve seen plenty of him getting stuck since his arrival, indeed: only Isaac Schmidt (£4.0m) delivered more tackles, clearances etc in a Leeds shirt on Saturday, even if Stach’s tally wouldn’t have been enough for DC points in this instance.
What we weren’t expecting was a bit of attacking threat: his best-ever top-flight season goals tally is two.
But could Daniel Farke’s new 4-3-3 system unleash him a bit?
He generally played in a restrained two-man midfield at Hoffenheim, with a ’10’ ahead of him.
Here, though, the ‘eights’ in Farke’s set-up get forward a bit more, with Ethan Ampadu (£5.0m) holding fort in midfield. That extra attacking license allowed Stach to get upfield and wallop the bar in the 10th minute.
He’s also, would you believe, on corners – so he’s looking like one of the better £5.0m midfielders around, if your expectations are realistic.
BOGLE INJURY LATEST
Schmidt had a torrid afternoon at right-back for Leeds, with Milan’s goal coming from his flank.
He’s a £4.0m defender with no real medium-term prospects, with Jayden Bogle (£4.5m) first choice and Schmidt even potentially leaving before the end of August.
The sooner Bogle can be back, the better for the Whites, with Schmidt a weak link.
“He’s back out on the grass doing some individual work. He’s been out since two weeks, it’s not ideal. I hope to have him back at some point during the next week, so that he can become a topic also for the squad against Everton. He’s an important player for us and of course, I hope he will make it and then also be ready to play. We will see. He has missed the last two weeks, not ideal preparation for the first game.” – Daniel Farke on Jayden Bogle, via the Yorkshire Evening Post
Farke also hopes to have (likely) back-up centre-half Sebastiaan Bornauw (£4.0m) back in training this week.
SELECTION CLUES?
This looked like a very Gameweek 1-y side from Farke, with Joel Piroe (£5.5m) getting the nod up front. It was a quiet afternoon from the striker but all-round contribution is not really his game (he’s a Vardy type), and he wasn’t too far away with two snapshots.
Schmidt aside, the defence will likely be as it was here for the Everton game. Jaka Bijol (£4.0m) is suspended in Gameweek 1.
Who will be between the sticks, though? Lucas Perri (£4.5m) made his Leeds debut on Saturday, with Karl Darlow (£4.0m) on at half-time. Illan Meslier (£4.5m) is now pretty much out of the picture.
There’s still a glimmer of short-term hope for Darlow due to Perri’s fitness, although Farke hinted at Perri being his – quite literal – number one in the long run.
“Lucas Perri is not there at 100 per cent yet but I wanted to at least give him the experience of the first 45 minutes. Karl is in the pecking order at the moment ahead of Illan because he had a fantastic finish last season and a really good pre-season. So there’s no need for me right now to change the pecking order in these terms.
“Of course, Lucas is also a player who is likely to play a role for us, and for that, we decided then just to give him the number one shirt. It’s not a decision against Illan, it’s more a decision for the confidence of Lucas, and to make him welcome, and also to show why we’ve signed him. For the day, I’m a bit old-fashioned. In my generation, the starting XI wore numbers from one to 11 and to have the number one not travelling with us on the shirt, I would have struggled a little bit. So we decided to give it to Lucas.” – Daniel Farke, via the Yorkshire Evening Post
Leeds United XI: Perri (Darlow 45), Gudmundsson (Harrison 75), Ampadu (Gruev 67), Struijk (Bijol 75), Rodon, James (Aaronson 67), Piroe (Nmecha 67), Stach, Tanaka (Longstaff 67), Gnonto (Ramazani 75), Schmidt (Byram 67).
defensive contributions