Bench role for Villa duo

Christian Benteke and Jack Grealish were wrapped in cotton wool as Aston Villa suffered a 3-1 pre-season defeat to Fulham in Portugal.

Belgium striker Benteke, whose future has been the subject of much speculation this summer, and exciting prospect Grealish were both on the Villa bench for the Algarve friendly but neither featured as Sky Bet Championship club Fulham struck twice late on to secure victory.

Matt Smith opened the scoring with a 22nd-minute header before Villa, having made 11 changes at the break, equalised through Libor Kozak after 55 minutes.

But Alex Kacaniklic's 25-yarder saw Fulham regain the lead midway through the second half and Ross McCormack's composed finish three minutes from time settled matters.

Southampton lost both their Audi Quattro Cup matches in Salzburg.

Pablo Piatti's 23rd-minute goal saw the Saints lose 1-0 to Valencia at the semi-final stage before tournament hosts Red Bull Salzburg inflicted a 2-0 defeat on a Southampton team showing 11 changes with Havard Nielsen and Dimitri Oberlin on target.

West Ham shared six goals with Peterborough as the League One club staged a defiant recovery at London Road.

Peterborough led early though Ricardo Almeidwa Santos but the Hammers - with new manager Slaven Bilic having named a far more recognisable side than the one which secured Europa League progress in Andorra on Thursday night - hit back through Mark Noble, Diafra Sakho and Martin Samuelsen.

Jon Taylor pulled one for Posh before the break before Michael Bostwick equalised on the hour.

Crystal Palace striker Dwight Gayle grabbed a hat-trick as the Eagles beat Barnet 5-3 with Reise Allassani and Fraizer Campbell also on target.

Cameron Jerome also bagged a first half hat-trick as Norwich coasted to a routine 7-0 victory over Eastern Counties League outfit Gorleston.

Tony Andreu and Vadis Odjidja-Ofoe also scored before the break before Lewis Grabban and Jonny Howson netted for Norwich against their Norfolk neighbours.

Fellow Premier League newcomers Watford found life more difficult at AFC Wimbledon as they drew 2-2.

Odion Ighalo and Fernando Forestieri scored either side of half-time for the Hornets but League Two outfit Wimbledon equalised twice from the penalty spot through Callum Kennedy and George Francomb.

Source : PA

Source: PA