Football Season Guide

Amiens will play their first season in France's top flight after securing back-to-back promotions. The small side from the north of the country showed last term that, through a combination of determination and organisation, they are well capable of confounding their critics. However, repeating their feats a level up will be a difficult challenge. Head coach, Christophe Pélissier, has been someone to thrive in difficult situations having won promotion to Ligue 2 previously with Luzenac but he has no experience of this level of football. Amiens will have the smallest budget in the league by quite some distance and, even though they won promotion last term, they have had to work primarily in the free transfer market over the summer months. There have been few notable additions to their side such as Prince Gouano and Mathieu Bodmer, with the former joining from Atalanta and the latter an experienced defender from Guingamp. Issa Cissokho is another interesting addition in a similar vein. Offensively, they have moved to sign Gael Kakuta, who was once considered to be one of the big hopes of French football. Otherwise, they have had to work on a shoestring budget, often signing players from ‘B’ teams, such as Brighton Labeau from Monaco and Mahdi Talal from Angers. On the flip side, they have retained the bulk of the team that caused such a stir last term, with the exception of Richard Soumah. If the defence is new look, there should not be great change in a midfield in which prospects Tanguy NDombele and Guessouma Fofana have both been retained over the summer. Offensively, they are a touch weak, without a single notable scoring threat in their ranks. This may be something that is addressed over the weeks to come, but it appears that the midfield sector will be leaned on heavily once again, though it did not let them down at the crunch last term.