The Middlesbrough manager Bryan Robson at least saw encouraging displays from two of his new signings, the Australian Paul Okon and Cameroon's Joseph-Desire Job, in Middlesbrough's 2-0 defeat to Borussia Dortmund at the Riverside Stadium yesterday.
Middlesbrough were off the pace in a friendly that also marked Robbie Mustoe's 10 years at the club, but Okon was industrious and Job caused problems for Dortmund's central defenders. Hamilton Ricard, by contrast, had a poor game and was withdrawn at half-time.
A strike from Victor Ikpeba and an own goal from the young Irish defender Jason Gavin won the game for the Germans.
Arsene Wenger will not have missed the irony as Barcelona, featuring his £30 million sterling cast-offs Marc Overmars and Emmanuel Petit, won Ajax's Centenary Tournament in Amsterdam on Saturday.
But the Arsenal manager is likely to have been more concerned about the lack of sharpness among his front-rank performers in the closing tournament game against Ajax as Arsenal went down 2-1, following a defeat by Barcelona on Thursday.
Thierry Henry and Patrick Vieira, both substituted in the second half, looked sluggish, while Robert Pires and Lauren did little to show they will quickly fill the gaps left by Overmars and Petit.
Barcelona, who played Petit as a sweeper and brought Overmars on as a second-half substitute, won the tournament on goalsscored with a 3-3 draw against Lazio.
Aston Villa, who are expected to show off their new signing David Ginola in Friday's final pre-season friendly at Benfica, may have temporarily lost the services of their full back Mark Delaney after he sustained a suspected knee ligament injury during Villa's 1-1 draw at Tamworth on Saturday .
Fabien Barthez's debut for Manchester United was a losing one as his new team lost 3-1 to Bayern Munich in the final of that club's Centenary Tournament at the Olympicstadion.
David Beckham missed a second-half penalty and United's defence looked out of sorts for most of the game as the tournament hosts gained some revenge for their defeat in the 1999 Champions League final.
The European champions, Real Madrid, who were beaten 1-0 by United on Friday, came from behind to beat the Uefa Cup holders Galatasaray 3-2 and take third place in the tournament.
Paul Gascoigne took part in Everton's 41 win over Exeter on Saturday but was only brought on in the 69th minute, by which time his side had taken an unassailable lead with two goals from Alex Nyarko and one each from Niclas Alexandersson and Francis Jeffers.
George Weah's debut for Manchester City was the only bright spot in an unnerving 4-1 defeat at Stockport for Joe Royle's newly-promoted side.
Weah, who scored City's only goal, initially struggled to build a rapport with his new team-mates but improved as the game went on. "He hasn't lost any of his pace - but he needs a yard of sharpness," said Royle, who described the overall display as City's worst in two years.
The Tottenham manager George Graham left Ian Walker on the bench in favour of Neil Sullivan for the second successive warm-up game in a 2-0 win over QPR in Danny Maddix's testimonial.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/YVIRIOZQ35EWRPZXR27KGMO6YU.png)