Football Season Guide

After a difficult time last season, Falkirk are now looking to be title challengers again. They started last season with that in mind too, but a terrible start consigned them relegation woes for most of the campaign. However, new manager, Paul Hartley, brought back some respectability with a strong second half of the season that saw them eventually finish in 8th place. Falkirk are hoping to take that momentum into the new season. The Falkirk squad has been overhauled to the extent they could easily start the season without a single player who started last season. A host of highly experienced players have left including favourites, Craig Sibbald and Tom Taiwo. The Bairns were also heavily reliant on loan signings such as Alex Jakubiak and Conor Hazard and they have all departed too. It’s now Hartley’s squad and he can’t look back to find excuses any more. Hartley has been using his contacts to bring in replacements with many of them being complete unknown quantities. However, Northern Irish international midfielder, Paul Paton, adds quality to Falkirk’s midfield along with Cyprus international, Dimitris Froxylias. Deimantas Petravicius also has striking experience with the Lithuanian national team. Striker, Dylan Mackin, has signed after falling out of favour at Livingston last season. Marcus Haber joins on loan from Dundee. Falkirk are almost starting from scratch again and they may take a while to blend together with consistency being a problem in the first half of the season. As ever, the messages coming from Falkirk’s social media machine abound with positivity. As a club and community they appear as one at the moment. However, they are not being touted as one of the title favourites despite high expectations within the support. Falkirk are likely to make a few more loan signings that could make all the difference to their campaign. The Bairns will be happy to make the play-offs, but a sustained title challenge from a new squad seems unlikely.