Football Season Guide

Were promoted to the Primera Liga last season as they won La Liga 2 ahead of Deportivo La Coruna. Despite conceding more goals than Real Zaragoza, who were relegated due to finishing bottom, they finished top because of the goals they scored, which averaged over 2 per match. This season is going to be difficult though, and not just because they're facing better opponents. As breath-taking as the playing style of boss Jose Alberto was last season, approaching matches against the likes of Villarreal, Barcelona, or even Real Betis with the mindset of trying to score more goals in an open game than them is extremely risky. The good news for the northerners is that they've retained the services of key players like Inigo Vicente and Andres Martin. Although they've lost the superb dribbling skills if impact substitute Camara, they still have a good attacking threat to call upon, especially having turned target man Villalibre's loan move into a permanent transfer. However, they've lost a lot of depth pre-season. Perhaps not so much Manex Lozano, given that the club already signed Guliahsvili, and loaned Zabiri more recently. They could miss playmaker Peio Canales though, who was superb last season. Sergio Canales was brought in to replace him but whether he can still cut it at this level is a tough one to answer. At the time of writing this preview, they have less than 20 players in their squad, including just 1 goalkeeper. Their starting eleven is good enough, at least in attack - they shouldn't struggle to score goals. However, they've not improved their defending at all, and that was a far bigger problem than was evident in last season's promotion push. Without 4-5 players joining (at least one of which must be a GK), this team is not going to have enough depth to see out what is already going to be a very challenging campaign. Avoiding relegation has to be the aim but their cavalier approach to defending is likely to scupper their plans, especially as it almost feels inevitable that Athletic Club will bring back either Villalibre or Vicente in this campaign.