🚨 Everton held to draw at Accrington Stanley in first pre-season game
Everton stumbled to a 1-1 draw with a determined Accrington Stanley side in their opening pre-season game at the Wham Stadium.
Scorers: Ward 50'; Beto (pen) 79'
While the Toffees unsurprisingly had the better of the first half, they found Stanley goalkeeper Ollie Wright in inspired form. It was the 22-year-old's second game for the club following the confirmation of his season-long loan from Southampton.
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Five minutes after the break, the hosts took a shock lead through Benn Ward who headed home past Harry Tyrer.
David Moyes rang the changes throughout the game, and it was two substitutes who combined to draw them level.
Young winger Isaac Heath drove down the left, and was taken down inside the box for a penalty. Beto stepped up to slot home in confident fashion to earn a draw for Everton.
The Premier League side are next in action on Saturday when they make the short trip to Ewood Park to take on Blackburn Rovers.
📸 Matt McNulty - 2025 Getty Images
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New York Times
2 hours ago
- New York Times
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It's time to start an uncomfortable conversation. It's time for Brighton & Hove Albion to upgrade Lewis Dunk. Being a one-club player and captaining your boyhood club is just as sacrosanct as it is rare in 2025. The 33-year-old is inseparable from Brighton's rise over the past two decades. When they won League One in 2011, Dunk was in his first full season as a professional. Advertisement He was Brighton's top scorer across all competitions in 2014-15 (seven goals) as the club just stayed up in the Championship. There was his indomitable partnership with Shane Duffy, registering the most clean sheets in the Championship as Brighton won promotion under Chris Hughton, and they were the bedrock that helped the club stabilise in the Premier League. When Graham Potter succeeded Hughton in the summer of 2019, and the club changed strategy — focusing their recruitment on younger players and transforming their style on the pitch — Dunk reinvented himself. Having defended the box most weeks, he was now asked to play against pressure, stay on the ball, and break lines. He also replaced Bruno Saltor as club captain from the 2019-20 campaign. Dunk's new partner in the heart of defence was Adam Webster, then a club-record signing from Bristol City in August 2019. Potter tweaked his shape, sometimes picking two centre-backs and other times three, but Dunk stayed. His evolution earned him an England call-up just over 12 months after his Premier League debut. Then in 2022 came Roberto De Zerbi and the most extreme build-up tactics: stand beside the six-yard box, keep your sole on the ball until opponents press you, then play short passes into the midfielders. Out of possession, the centre-backs were required to man-mark opponents and press all the way into the opponents' third. Levi Colwill joined on a season-long loan from Chelsea because the system needed an athletic, left-footed centre-back next to Dunk. That season, he turned 31, and played 36 of 38 league games as Brighton finished a club-record sixth to qualify for Europe for the first time. Dunk captained them in the Europa League in the 2023-24 season, with Brighton topping a group that contained Marseille, AEK Athens and Ajax before being eliminated by Roma in the round of 16. His centre-back partner had changed again, with Jan Paul van Hecke, a Netherlands international, establishing himself under De Zerbi and then current head coach, Fabian Hurzeler. The question, when Dunk one day retires, is where they put the statue and what they make it out of. Everton's Seamus Coleman is the only longer-serving player at a Premier League club. In another universe, Dunk's ceiling might have been the Championship or a bottom-half Premier League team. It speaks to how easy he is to coach, his talent and his capacity for reinvention that four very different coaches have viewed him as leadership material and a core player. Advertisement It became clear in 2024-25, though, especially on a physical level, that Dunk's peak years are behind him. A mix of chest and calf injuries kept him out of much of the second half of the season. He only made 23 league starts and clocked just over 2,000 minutes, his fewest in eight years as a Premier League player. Hurzeler said in May that Dunk was not regularly training and thus 'not on his highest physical level'. The added difficulty is that the physical demands for Premier League centre-backs have risen sharply in recent years, more than any other position. Hurzeler called 2024-25 'a difficult season' for Dunk. 'He never really got into his rhythm,' the head coach explained. He missed the start of Brighton's pre-season after being part of England's squad at Euro 2024, disrupting his club campaign before it had even begun. 'But he is always there. He never hides when he gets critical feedback,' Hurzeler added. 'He never hides when he has a bad performance. 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