Football Season Guide

Oostende are looking to make amends after a truly disappointing and demoralising last season left them scratching for inspiration and hope. They changed the approach by getting a foreign manager with an impressive CV in Norwegian Kåre Ingebrigtsen, who was a serial title winner in Norway with Rosenborg before being sacked last summer, and also went for a few more high-profile signings. The Kustboys now have a much broader squad and in it shine the likes of Ronald Vargas and Renato Neto, players who have undoubted quality and experience in this league. Yet, they come with the downside of being injury plagued and these sort of move certainly carry some risk for the club. Yaya Sane is also a good signing in defence, where the veteran Nicolas Lombaerts is still around despite the desire to ship him away, while Ari Skulason is a very good full-back to have as well despite he got relegated last season with Lokeren. One area that has not been improved so far this summer is the attack, where Fashion Sakala and Sindrit Guri remain the main options. None of them proved too reliable or prolific and it remains to be seen if another body can be brought in to make the team more competitive. Oostende will look with some hope towards the top six after an encouraging transfer period but realistically they should be looking for a place between seventh and tenth after flirting with the bottom places last season.