The season is starting to get closer and closer. The third qualifying rounds of the Champions League and the Europa League have started it and with it some household names have entered the competition. You have the likes of Ajax, Anderlecht, Celtic and Copenhagen in the former and Juventus, Liverpool, Stuttgart and Sporting Lisbon in the latter.

Then you have the friendlies which are happening here, there and everywhere. Blackburn Rovers are in Sydney and Manchester United are in the States.

It is hard to read too much into these tours and friendly matches. After all, Manchester United lost to the Kansas City Wizards which just doesn’t make sense. But this was no full strength United side. There is a good reason for this. First of all you have players who are still to recover from injuries and surgery from last season. Also, they may have played in the World Cup and thus recovering from that.

Second of all, the crowd in Kansas isn’t really going to know who is and isn’t out on the pitch. So you could put any 11 guys in a red shirt and it wouldn’t make a difference to them. In terms of fantasy football, when the stakes are this low, it doesn’t pay to read too much into it.

Come the opening day of the Premier League season there are still going to be guys who are going to fall under the radar . This is just the way things work.