Stoke City 0 – 1 Everton
Everton visit the Bet365 Stadium and home of Stoke City this afternoon for their penultimate pre-season friendly, kicking off at 3 pm.
A number of first-team players have yet to feature in any of the pre-season games but, with James Garner, Jarrad Branthwaite and Demarai Gray back from international duty and new loanee Arnaut Danjuma now in full training with the squad, Sean Dyche should have a bigger group to select from for today’s game.
Fitness concerns still appear to be the limiting factor for Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Seamus Coleman, and Dele Alli as they recover from their respective injuries, while the situation regarding Jean-Phillipe Gbamin remains a mystery after his claim of not returning to Everton appears so far to be true.
New signings Young and Danjuma both start, with Dobbin and two goalies on the bench.
Stoke showed better, dominating the opening stages, Young booked for winning the ball but catching an opponent on the ankle. Stoke kept testing the Everton defensive structure, until Everton were able to break but McNeil was pulled back. From the free-kick, Doucouré’s close-range shot was well blocked.
The rest of the first half was played out in a similar manner, with Stoke leading on points at the break but unable to get past Pickford and the Everton defence.
It was much the same in the second half until right at the end when the fortunate sequence form a late corner saw Tarkowski head generally toward Onana who bundled the ball off the Stoke keeper and into the net.
Everton: Pickford, Patterson, Keane (46′ Branthwaite), Tarkowski, Young [Y:8′], Gana, Garner (46′ Onana), Doucoure (83′ Onyango), Iwobi, Danjuma (46′ Maupay), McNeil (69′ Dobbin).
Subs not Used: Virginia, Crellin, Godfrey, Hunt.