You can read little into the friendly fire - wait for

FRIENDLIES are a notoriously unreliable way to judge how a team might do in the season ahead. Sure, you might learn a thing or two about options the manager is considering, but they are effectively glorified training games with getting the players up to match fitness the primary objective.

Sheffield United lost to Burton

Albion in their pre-season friendlies last summer, but are now challenging for a potential Champions League place. Huddersfield Town went undefeated last summer, and started the season without a win in their first nine games.

And that’s pre-season, where games are at least typically 90 minutes long even if 22 substitutions are made at half-time.

But this situation is something completely new. Town’s preresumption games have been in two 30-minute halves, two 45-minute halves and three 45-minute halves.

In such bizarre circumstances, the scorelines become even more meaningless.

Most clubs are going out of their way to keep the scores secret and that is a side-effect of what they’re really trying to keep under wraps – the line-ups.

There are obvious reason for that. Managers won’t want to give away potential injury news, nor will they want to show their hand as to any experimentation they might be doing around tactics or personnel.

This is unavoidable when fans are allowed to be in attendance, but given the option, most managers would prefer to keep their cards close to their chests.

Knowing that a certain type of fan is