Football Season Guide

Odd were one of the impressive success stories of last season as they developed into quite a nice, possession based side that got some neat wins and played on the front foot despite the relative paucity of talent they had. It was definitely a fine coaching job in his first season in charge for Pal Arne Johansen and he will be itching at the prospect of building on these foundations and seeking Odd developed further. The transfer campaign has been rather quiet so far for the Blacks but they did lose one of their more pivotal players nevertheless in Odin Bjørtuft, who moved to Bodø/Glimt. He will be tough to replace at the heart of defence but the signing of Diogo Tomas from Finnish side KuPs is a decent piece of business and he may turn out to be quite a good replacement. Sonde Solholm is another good signing at the back as the former Mjøndalen man is a reliable and competent defender at this level. Filip Jørgensen is staying put and will look to build on his improvement from last season at the base of midfield while players like Conrad Wallem and Josef Bacay will aim to continue their development after strong seasons last year too. It will be interesting to see if Dennis Gjengaar builds on a very promising second half of last season and becomes a fixture down the right wing after some explosive showings the last time out. The one glaring hole in this squad is the lack of a true reliable striker, with Adama Diomonde leaving in the off-season after barely playing due to injury in the previous campaign. Mikael Ingebrigsen filled in well last season but he is not really a forward and this is one area that Johansen would very much like to strengthen. But this team still has all the basic ingredients for a solid campaign and should not have too many problems staying clear of any trouble.