[NoSkillz]

Sat. July 26, 2025

Preseason Friendly
Dover vs. Watford (English Championship)
Crabble Athletic Ground, Dover, UK

Watford are one of my favourite real-life teams - in this dynasty, they’ve been in the Championship the entire run, with two fourth place finishes being the best they’ve done. I recognize one of their players, midfielder Ben Sayer, as being a former Dover U18 player way back in our Blue Square Premier and League 2 days! Nice that the kid carved out a decent career, as he’s in his sixth year with Watford now!

We’ll use this game as a means for many of our unfit players to get some playing time. Arsene Bamba, Manuel Lugo, Zoltan Bardi and Saber Nasri are still working on their fitness. I also start U18 goalkeeper Jordan Tandy and defenders Andrew Hunter and Liam Pearce for the first time.

Dover: 4-4-2 Control
GK - J. Tandy
D - L. Pearce, A. Hunter, S. Nasri, R. Lopez
M - A. Bamba, N. Cairney, E. Harvey, S. De la Vega
S - M. Lugo, Z. Bardi

Dover 3- 0 Watford
Goals - Saber Nasri 2 (9.3), Manuel Lugo (7.8)
Assists - Neil Cairney (7.3), Arsene Bamba (8.2), Zoltan Bardi (7.1)
Man of the Match - Saber Nasri
Other Dover Notables - Rodolfo Lopez (7.5), Andrew Hunter (7.2), Liam Pearce (7.4), Sergio De la Vega (7.1)
Attendance - 9,242

We dominate this game but it was relatively boring, as Saber Nasri scores on two set piece headers. Always nice to see Lugo pitch in with a goal as well.



Season Ticket Update

-- We’ve sold just over 6900 season ticket packages and expectations are that we sell up to about 8600. We had less than 7500 last year so that would be a sizeable increase.



International Update

-- GK Manuel Perez, as is customary during our preseason schedule, is away on international duty for Mexico in the Gold Cup and he continues to dominate, getting another clean sheet in a win over Canada.



Next Up

-- We face another Championship side, this time on the road at Nottingham Forest.