Football Season Guide

It was a disappointing debut campaign for Heiko Herrlich as Bayer Leverkusen fell just short of booking a place in the Champions League, finishing fifth, thanks to an inferior goal difference amongst the trio of clubs who all finished with 55 points. Bayer once again struggled for consistency, showing good form in patches, but had to pay a big price for a couple of poor results against teams finishing in the bottom half of the table. Herrlich had drilled his team well enough so that Bayer were rarely outplayed by their opponents, with the club registering the third best defence among the top six in the table, but it is further up the field where problems lie for the Bayer coach after seeing his side struggle to score goals on a consistent basis. The club will be aiming for a different outcome this time around but have largely the same set of players available as they have had a relatively quiet transfer window so far. There has been one major departure during the summer, with Bernd Leno leaving for Arsenal, but Bayer have reacted quickly and brought in Lukas Hradecky. The former Eintracht Frankfurt keeper enjoyed a pretty good campaign last season to show that he has the ability to cut his teeth in teams aiming to finish near the top of the table. Mitchell Weiser has also been brought in to provide competition at the right back, and is likely to kick the season off as first choice after Benjamin Henrichs failed to convince Herrlich who at times even deployed Karim Bellarabi and Lars Bender in the position. Their biggest outlay though has been for Paulinho, with the midfielder arriving from Vasco da Gama leaving Bayer with some exciting young talent on the flanks with the club already having Julian Brandt and Leon Bailey on their books. Further up front, Kevin Volland and Lucas Alario will be fighting it out for the lone striker spot while Bayer have also brought in Isaac Kiese Thelin on loan from Anderlecht. All in all it will be a largely familiar Bayer side that will be taking to the field when the season kicks off, and Herrlich will be hoping results go their way this time around as he once again aims for a place in the top four.