Football Season Guide

Strasbourg made it back to European football, fuelled by the connection of owners BlueCo with Chelsea. Like the Stamford Bridge side, they have been extremely active in the transfer market, with a high turnover of staff. Unfortunately, they have lost many of their best players, with Chelsea the principle benefactors as Djordje Petrovic and Andrey Santos returned with much-enhanced reputations. Over the summer, Racing have been shielded from losing many of their other stars, though. Habib Diarra has left for Sunderland in a big-money deal but while centre-back Mamadou Sarr has signed for Chelsea, the teenager has returned immediately on loan. Indeed, five players have booked up from the Blues, with goalkeeper Mike Penders and highly rated young attacker Kendry Paez also arriving temporarily. Mathis Amougou and Ishe Samuels-Smith have joined permanently. It’s notable that Strasbourg have only signed young once again, with Liam Rosenior’s side not being furnished with any type of experience prior to their European campaign. Andrew Omobamidele is their oldest of their 13 signings at 23. Indeed, with only one player aged over 23 in the whole squad – the rarely used Eduard Sobol - don’t expect energy to be a problem this season. Lack of experience, though, might be. And that counts for the manager, too. Getting a level of consistency with this squad promises to be a challenge. Not only are the players young, it is also bloated in terms of its numbers, suggesting that consistency will be a problem. There certainly shouldn’t be too many worries over the quality of player available to Rosenior. There is no lack of ability in any area of the field and the way the team is constructed should mean that the additional burden of Europe should not be a problem.