Football Season Guide

Werder Bremen will have heightened expectations of their new coach once again as they look forward to a successful campaign following a strong finish to last season. Alexander Nouri took over from Viktor Skrypnyk less than a month into the last campaign and, after some teething troubles, the 37-year old led Bremen to a comfortable 8th placed finish, just three points short of a European qualification spot. As expected, Nouri was confirmed as the permanent coach in the closing stages of last season and will be looking to build on what was a pretty good campaign which defied expectations following a poor start. There have been a couple of significant departures though with captain Clemens Fritz retiring at the end of last season while the club decided not to renew Claudio Pizarro's contract. The biggest loss though will be that of Serge Gnabry who was sold to Bayern Munchen but the emergence of Florian Kianz in the final weeks of the campaign should offset the loss. Santiago Garcia, Raphael Wolf, Florian Grillitsch and Felix Wiedwald have also left the club. However, Bremen have acted quickly and invested the proceeds from Gnabry's sale by bringing in Ludwig Augustinsson and Jiri Pavlenka, who are expected to kick the season off as first choice left back and keeper respectively, while Jerome Gondorf also provides a handy option in the center of the midfield. Nouri has held on to all of his key performers from last season with Max Kruse, Fin Bartels and Zlatko Junuzovic expected to play a key role in Bremen's fortunes, while a fit again Philipp Bargfrede will provide a more reliable shield to the defence. Bremen face a tough start to the campaign, with the opening three fixtures coming against teams who finished in the top six last season but, should they manage to come through with minimal damage, they do have enough quality to once again push for a place in the top half.