A week ago today, a host of player returned to the club’s Benton base for the first day of pre-season training.
The likes of Wilson, Shelvey, Lascelles and Joelinton were then followed by our new signings and international players on Wednesday this week, seeing Botman, Pope, Bruno, Trippier and others join the group in good time for Saturday’s first friendly of the summer against Gateshead.
Discounting Gayle, Hendrick, Clark and Matty Longstaff – who are all training with our reserves – we’ve counted 25 senior players and six U23s in first-team training, however two appear to be missing – Chris Wood and Javier Manquillo.
Wood is likely to have been given an extended break due to him playing three times for New Zealand last month, going from Spain to Qatar before losing a World Cup qualifier to Costa Rica just a few weeks ago, yet the reason behind Manquillo failing to feature in any of the club photos/videos remains a bit of a mystery.
Perhaps he’s carrying a knock or struggling with illness – he missed out final two games of 2021/22 with chickenpox – but it’s left some on social media wondering.
Here’s a full list of players we’ve spotted when looking at the club’s official training footage (and photos) over the past week (* indicates U23player)
GOALKEEPERS: Martin Dubravka, Karl Darlow, Mark Gillespie, Nick Pope.
DEFENDERS: Dan Burn, Jamaal Lascelles, Kell Watts*, Matt Targett, Paul Dummett, Federico Fernandez, Jamal Lewis, Kieran Trippier, Sven Botman, Fabian Schar, Emil Krafth.
MIDFIELDERS: Joe Willock, Jonjo Shelvey, Joelinton, Sean Longstaff, Joe White*, Lucas De Bolle*, Jay Turner-Cooke*, Bruno Guimaraes, Elliot Anderson*.
WINGERS: Allan Saint-Maximin, Matt Ritchie, Ryan Fraser, Jacob Murphy, Miguel Almiron.
STRIKERS: Callum Wilson, Isaac Westendorf*.
(Dwight Gayle, Jeff Hendrick, Ciaran Clark and Matty Longstaff are training with the reserves).
