Football Season Guide

Nancy go into the new Ligue 2 season regarded as one of the favourites to lift the title, having been relegated from the top flight in May. They have bounced up and down the divisions regularly over the course of the last 20 years, so the prospect of winning promotion is unlikely to faze them too much, though it will certainly be a challenge. The Lorraine side have so far acted slowly in the transfer market and have signed only a few players including former Montpellier goalkeeper Geoffrey Jourdren, holding midfielder Laurent Abergel and centre forward Patrik Eler, an unknown quantity in France, despite great success in Austria's second tier last year. Meanwhile, they have lost a number of regulars in their side. Although they had little success offensively last season, they have lost their two best players in the form of Issiar Dia and Faitout Maouassa, both wingers. Indeed, with Loic Puyo and Karim Coulibaly also going, depth in attack will be an issue as well as quality. Youssouf Hadji showed last season he is well past his best in the centre forward role. Additionally, Maurice Dale has departed so much rests on new man Eler. The midfield has also been significantly stripped, with Dialo Guidileye and Youssef Ait Bennasser leaving along with veteran Alou Diarra. At present, the squad looks threadbare and it could be depleted further but, for Ligue 2 level, it is not without quality. Benoit Pedretti’s know-how in the middle of the park will again be important, with Vincent Marchetti a promising youngster in there. The rearguard, meanwhile, may have been stripped but has a good deal of quality assuming there is no further depletion of its ranks. This area of the squad looks most complete as things stand. Nevertheless, for Nancy to mount a serious challenge, progress must be made in the transfer market, something the club are confident of achieving.