Football Season Guide

Baltika were the undoubted biggest success story of last season as they defied pretty much every expectation and found themselves among the top three teams in the standings for long stretches of the year. They went on some pretty stunning runs, not losing a home game until late April and conceding just two goals in a spell of 13 games from August to February. Their success was based on tireless work ethic from the entire squad, who fully bought into Aleksey Talalaev's methods, and the smart system of the coach, who put defence first with three at the back but had one of the best strikers in the league last season on Bryan Gil. Now the challenge for the Kaliningrad side is to maintain that level of results and performances when a lot of teams will approach them in a completely different manner than last season. It will be certainly a much more demanding campaign and based on the fact that Baltika somewhat fell off and became more porous at the back at the end of last season, the warning signs are there for Talalaev and his coaching staff. It will be up to them to tweak the style to keep the rest of the league guessing and also find some gems in the transfer market that enhance this squad and add some pieces, especially in midfield. The biggest loss so far in the transfer market is of defender Kevin Andrade joining champions Zenit. He can be certainly replaced though as Edardo Anderson showed some glimpses since joining in the spring and is of a similar physical type. Gill remains with the team so far and he will be an even bigger loss if he potentially gets sold before the end of August. Fahd Moufi is a potentially superb addition at right wing back and will fill the gap that was left by Vladimir Saus' mid-season departure. He is a very adept as a wing-back, as shown at Orenburg last season, and should fit in pretty quickly. The other additions so far are Russian players who have struggled to fulfil their potential so far and at least initially will be used more to provide depth. Baltika are thus likely to be a pretty solid and competitive side that should be in and around the top half of the table but expecting them to get as many points and be as consistent as they were last season is quite unrealistic.