Football Season Guide

A few late victories enabled Caykur Rize to survive at the top of the league last season, as they had never been consistent enough. In particular, they were the worst away performers of the league. In order to improve from last season, the board were very busy in the summer transfer market. They added Loic Remy from Lille as the former Chelsea man did a good job last season and should give a great support to the team with his quality. Besides him, they also added four players who are somehow all related to Genclerbirligi: they hired former players Engin Bekdemir and Baiano besides Nadir & Yasin. Thus, the sportive director was criticized by the fans a lot as he worked with the same agency in all those arrivals. The fans also believe that those players are not good enough for the team. Another rumour is that Engin was signed in although he had a cartilage problem. The last arrival is Konrad Michalak who was not a regular at Akhmat Grozny last season. According to the fans, the board’s transfer policy is not proper as they brought no new defenders yet although they need them a lot. Coach Stjepan Tomas’ arrival is the smallest problem here. At his 1st coaching experience, he failed to record any victory with Antalya and could just defend a lower division side in the cup. The good news is that some important players like Skoda, Samudio, Melnjak are still with them. A very tough season awaits them in general and the Croatian coach will have to cope with the pressure as it will grow every week they get a bad result.