Yesterday, Everton announced a series of matches the club will play as part of the ramp-up to the 2026/27 campaign. It's a pretty extensive list, with the Toffees set to play four warm-up matches, in addition to a few that were previously announced.
But one thing sticks out as part of the club's schedule: all of the matches are either away or on neutral sites, at least so far.
The run begins on Saturday, July 18, with a trip to Dens Park to take on Dundee FC in Scotland, roughly 5 hours from Hill Dickinson. The Dark Blues play in the Scottish Premiership and are coming off a second-place finish in Group B.
Next comes a trip to Toughsheet Community Stadium to face off against Bolton Wanderers the following Saturday. The Trotters finished 5th in League One last season.
Just three days later comes preseason fixture number three, with a 90 minute trip down to Stoke-on-Trent to play Stoke City, who ended last season 17th in the Championship.
August features two more matches, including a trip to Stuttgart, Germany, on the 8th to face VFB Stuttgart of the Bundesliga at MHP Arena, a team that should present the biggest test of the preseason for Everton, with Die Roten having finished in 4th in Germany's top tier last year.
Finally, it's back to Scotland for a neutral site friendly against Newcastle United at Scottish Gas Murrayfield Stadium on August 12. That is quite a bit of traveling for the team, and the four-hour trip from Liverpool to Edinburgh won't be easy on supporters either.
The intrigue, of course, is that Everton currently have zero preseason matches set to be played at the Hill Dickinson Stadium. With a shorter summer due to the World Cup and the Premier League season set to kick off just 10 days after the Newcastle friendly, it is difficult to see where they can squeeze one in, either.
The first preseason match is the day before the World Cup final, so there's an outside chance that the full squad won't even have arrived in time for that fixture, especially if, say, Jordan Pickford and England reach the later rounds of the tournament.
In that regard, this seems like a missed opportunity and a lot to ask of the supporters, who travel so well during the Premier League season. Adding more travel, especially to further-off destinations like Germany (it's 14-15 hours by car or coach), is quite taxing for any match, let alone a meaningless preseason fixture.
Here's hoping the club figure out how to make a home match happen, but at the moment, it doesn't feel very likely given how congested things already are.
Add us as a preferred source on Google