Mark Langdon: What punters can actually learn from pre-season - and it starts with penalties

There is nothing like pre-season friendlies to bring out the confirmation bias in us all.

That team we fancied to do well this term have won every match in the run-up to the new campaign and you won't hear of defeat for them in the title race.

Get it ready. Aye aye. Call a copper. This will not be beaten.

Funnily enough, if the team you fancy to win the league has a stinker in pre-season you can't find excuses quick enough. It's all about getting minutes in the legs.

The golden rule of following pre-season football is forever thus: If the result is good news for your ante-post bets then it matters and if it wasn't then it doesn't.

You always get some wild scores in pre-season and poor Eddie Howe must be wondering what he has done to deserve his miserable summer.

Newcastle's transfer targets have been missed all over the shop and now star striker Alexander Isak wants to jump ship, refusing to travel with the squad to South Korea.

Having done the flight to Seoul myself, I am Team Isak. I fell asleep at one point, woke up and assumed I had taken a decent chunk out of the 16-hour flight, only to quickly realise it was about 20 minutes later than the last time I had checked my watch.

Isak's decision might also have been influenced by Newcastle's 4-0 loss to Celtic last week, a result Howe described as a "great workout".

Meanwhile, on the same day, confirmation bias was in play at Reading as Tottenham's new teenager Luka Vuskovic sent Spurs' social media into meltdown.

Vuskovic has been noted as one to watch ever since he signed as a 16-year-old, with Fabrizio Romano describing him as a top talent when he broke the transfer deal a couple of years ago.

That might also have been the last time Fab beat the real transfer GOAT David Ornstein to an exclusive story, but Vuskovic's every step has apparently been followed by the blue-tick grifters on X who reckoned they were watching him on loan at Westerlo last season.

Spoiler alert - they weren't, but the hype machine was still in overdrive before Vuskovic's debut when the centre-back claimed an assist, scored a goal and cleared an effort off the line in his first ten minutes.

The finish was like watching Messi, the defending was Baresi-esque. There is nothing this kid can't do. Luke Littler and Luka Vuskovic. The future of sport. You heard it here first.

Of course, the reality is that very little in pre-season matters but you can dig out interesting bits of information if you look beyond the surface and there was a Nigel Clough nugget from last week's clash between his Mansfield side and Middlesbrough that is worth sharing.

The Stags roared back from 3-0 down to claim a 3-3 draw, but Clough was more interested in a penalty decision, where he gave decent insight with regard to officials looking to clamp down on holding in the penalty box.

"The referee said they have been instructed to give more for holding and so on. I would have thought in a pre-season game it would have been a quiet word and not to actually give them in pre-season."

If we presume Clough is telling the truth - and it would be a really weird lie - it suggests there is potential for more early-season penalties to be awarded with the usual attitude of referees following a new directive with a strict no-nonsense approach for a few weeks before slipping back into their old ways.

The task for this Saturday is to follow all of the League One and Two teams to make sure you have the spot-kick takers lined up for next week's opening EFL anytime goalscorer Lucky 63. This is what pre-season is all about. It's where you get your clues. 

Read more from Mark Langdon:

Why Everton could be the Premier League's handicap snip

Xabi Alonso's Real reboot starts now and it could define the Champions League season 

From Guardiola’s title warning to Boca’s 1-1000 blowout: why summer sport still hits hard

 Time-wasting crackdown is working – here’s hoping Premier League refs don’t bottle it 

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