I wouldn't say they are useless beyond fitness

because they're a good opportunity to test out new tactics and personnel without having to worry about results. The reason why results shouldn't be taken too seriously in pre season is because some teams will take certain games more seriously than others, for example, a lower league side will often (although not always) use a match against a club in a higher league to test out what will most likely be their best team/formation tactics, whereas the higher league team will often use these games to experiment, hence why many lower league sides gain freak results in pre season. It's better to try these new approaches out now before results actually matter.

I was watching the Man Citeh vs AC Milan match earlier on and Citeh were playing a high line with "slow as a pig that's stuck in the mud" midfielder Javier Garcia playing centre back. Milan kept playing the long ball over the top and it was killing him, which generally lead to the three goals/various other chances conceded in the first half. Citeh tried the experiment, it didn't work, but now they know that and they can move on (or maybe not, who knows!). The point is that the answers to such questions as "will this player work in this position" or "will this formation work" can't be answered without pre season friendlies, especially if you don't want to sacrifice league points like we did when we played Doc in central midfield against Stoke that one year.

These matches definitely aren't useless, but those who say that results shouldn't be taken seriously are still correct in all honesty.

TL;DR: Friendlies are useful beyond fitness, but the results shouldn't be taken too seriously, blah, blah, blah.

Posted By: Common Sense Police, Aug 1, 02:55:22