Football Season Guide

Having quite surprisingly become head coach in the middle of last season, after the unexpected sacking of Arne Slot, not much was expected of Pascal Jansen at AZ. As it happens, though, he smoothly managed to take the team to the top 3 of the Eredivisie, just 1 point off second-placed PSV. It is true that they had started the campaign with higher ambitions but Ajax turned out to be just too much for them. Thus, Jansen has been kept for the new season but he will be asked to work miracles if nothing happens, in terms of new signings, before the end of the transfer campaign. In fact, so far, AZ have mostly seen a great many of last season's players moving out. First of all, the experienced goalkeeper Bizot, with 65 clean sheets in 175 Eredivisie games, left for France while injury-prone right-back Svensson was lured away by Turkish money. However, it is the attack, who with 75 goals scored even more than PSV, that will be most dented by this semi-exodus, as 21-year-old Stengs, 7 goals and 5 assists last season, and 19-year-old Buadu, 38 goals and 18 assists in 88 games will now be playing in France. Together with them, AZ also let go a great numbers of fringe players or youngsters returning after the end of their loans away. The bad news for Jansen is that they have only signed 2 players so far. Beukema is expected to increase the depth at centre-back, an area that suffered a lot in terms of injuries last season, while 22-year-old Pavlidis, 28 goals and 12 assists in 73 Eredivisie games, will represent Buadu's replacement up-front. Not much for a team aiming at a place in the top 3.