Football Season Guide

The lengthy Alain Geiger era is now at an end; his replacement is Rene Weiler. They’re very settled in their 4-3-3 formation; it remains to be seen how any changes are handled. He’s inherited a good squad, although his first challenge was to address their full-back situation with Mbabu and Clichy no longer there. Diallo replacing Mbabu should not be problematic; he was excellent in that position before the ex-Young Boys Bern defender arrived from Fulham on loan. How Diallo feels about having previously been ousted remains to be seen though - he’s not played in some friendlies, and the club have now signed Japanese right-back Tsunemoto so perhaps the bridges cannot be rebuilt there.. Baron now has competition at left-back following the arrival of Mazikou; the latter is expected to be the regular. They still desperately need a centre-back though; none of their defensive pairings work no matter whether it’s Severin, Rouiller, or Vouilloz that’s the problem in any given week. This team does not know how to keep clean sheets anymore. They’ve also loaned out backup goalkeeper Omeragic for game-time, and brought in veteran Mall as a replacement for him. Although they’ve let themselves down a bit in central defence thus far, they’ve done themselves the world of good up front. They have had problems finding players to put the ball in the net over time. Bedia does it really well but never seems far from injury, and requires ‘bedding in’ time when he comes back. Crivelli is a good target man but is absolutely insane; more likely to be sent off than to score goals. Therefore, Patricio returning from his unsuccessful loan spell at Hellas Verona is a nice boost, although the big news was the signing of Geneva-born striker Guillemenot, who has been one of St. Gallen’s most consistent performers over the past year or two. His arrival - assuming they keep a 4-3-3 - should mean that he starts on the left, Bedia through the middle, and Stevanovic on the right - and that’ll produce goals. Let’s wait and see on formation, though - Geiger went a bit crazy and made it into a 4-2-3-1 for the last few months of last season. Suddenly Servette have plenty of attacking options. They’ve lost a couple of central midfielders but honestly, they had so many that losing some is actually a good thing. I do have concerns over their defensive capabilities (or rather, lack of), but everything else about this team looks really good. They should be able to start this campaign strongly, and should score plenty of goals too. I think they’ll have a good campaign, assuming they don’t lose Stevanovic, Guillemenot, Bedia, and Douline. Vouilloz’s departure would not help either, although predominantly because of a lack of decent alternatives rather than him being especially good.