Atvidabergs FF: 2022 Pre-season
The Season ahead
So here we are in the Superettan, the 2nd tier of Swedish football and the 1st tier that is National in scope. Another 16 team division, we play each team twice in a 30 game season. The top two are automatically promoted to the top flight (Allsvenskan) and the team in 3rd goes into a play-off with the team that finishes 3rd bottom in the top flight. However, chances are we are going to be at the other end of the table and that is where it could get a little tricky. The bottom two are automatically relegated with the teams who are 3rd and 4th to last going into play-offs against the sides that come 2nd in the Norra and Sodra.
Transfers
So going professional, meant we had to go and renew every contract at the club and to move the players off part time contracts and that took a lot of time and effort but we got there. Still there were exits at the club. The biggest loss was Morten Gamst Pedersen who at 40 years of age decided to retire and he is now my director of football and we are going to miss his 15 assists and set piece wizardry. Other than that we let three players go on a free transfer - Pontus Eriksson, Anders Eriksson and Josh Bragg. Bragg was in and out of the team in the midfield but at 30 years of age, there are better younger options. Anders Eriksson has been my backup centre back for the last two years and didnt get a huge amount of game time whilst Pontus Eriksson played in a number of positions over the last two years (LB, LM, RB) but failed to impress in all roles and so has been moved on.
There were two other exits on permanent deals as we sold back up goalkeeper Daniel Ahlberg who was kicking up a fuss about lack of game time and he joins Enskede for £1.3k with the second being Felipe Reider de Moraes who spent the whole of last season in the reserves where he scored a tonne of goals and has finally moved in a £1.3k deal and is off to Finland to play with AC Oulu. On top of that we loaned out 10 youth players to give them some more game time, some with small loan fees as we look to see if we can develop some players to help fuel our growth.
Now onto the Ins. It was busy as 10 new faces joined the club. We managed to loan back in Josue Segura Bonilla and Erik Grandelius for a 3rd straight season which is a great win. Bonilla's goals are going to be crucial whilst Grandelius is definitely our best player. We are paying more of Grandelius wages this year but I think it is totally worth it. So the main strategy was to bring in places in all positions to help boost the overall squad depth but also to remove some obvious weaknesses. It was a struggle as players either wanted big wages (£1k p/w) or were not willing to risk the prospect of joining a club who have had back to back promotions and predicted to finish last. I looked at our parent club Malmo for some help but to be honest, it was fruitless. They wouldn't loan out a number of players sitting in their reserves, the ones they would, they expected us to pay and the ones we could get to join for free were unwilling to play in the 2nd tier. So I had to make a change
BK Hacken have now taken over as our parent club, paying us aorund £1k per year more and they already seem more willing to do business with us. We managed to sign 24 year old Frenchman
Remi Mestrallet on loan for the season paying none of his wages. Solid physicals with some good tackling he gives us a ball winner in the middle of the park and I feel like we will be playing with a BWM this season as we are going to have less of the ball and there will be a need to try and win it. He can also play left back which has been another area of concern. Before the loan deal of Mestrellat, I did add 3 more central midfielders to the side in what has been the biggest revamp of our options.
Hampus Holgersson was the first in having been released by Mjallby. A solid allrounder who definitely needs work but has some youth on his side.
Noah Soderberg is another player with a similar review. He has less weaknesses than Holgersson but doesnt have the strengths and these two will be the back ups this season in the midfield. The other starter who will go alongside Mestrallet is
Jesper Brandt who also joins on a free and has taken over the captains armband for this season. Another player who can tackle but brings some much needed leadership and teamwork that we lost with Pedersens retirement.
So thats the central midfield covered. We also added a winger for each side. Competing with Grandelius we now have Kosovan
Patriot Sejdiu in the side. He was at Malmo and rejected coming on loan here a couple of times but now he is without a club, he has come crawling back. He has good pace and can cross but also means we finally have another option should Grandelius get injured or fall out of form. The right hand side will be governed by
Dennis Olofsson who again joins on a free transfer from Landskrona. He is solid, can play at right back meaning he has some defensive abilities as well and is just a solid player without being excellent.
Defensively we added three new players.
Linus Marklund comes in to play at left back having been at Umea for the last few years. He has solid stats with the standout being long throws meaning we might have a new set piece danger?!
Fredrik Martinsson was at GAIS last season and will be the right back for the season. Similar to Olofsson he can play further up the field if needed but will play right back due to his inferior crossing compared to Olofsson. Finally in the centre of defence we added some experience in
Anton Lans who is a left footed centre half and will give us better balance at the back. Whether i drop Fritzon or Pettersson is up for discussion but either way we now have options.
Our final signing was a new keeper and 18 year old
Samuel Andersen has come in to compete with N'Djock for a starting position. I initially was only looking for a back-up but Andersen could end up being a starter. So there you have it. A big window and we are going to need to juggle adding these players into the first team with ensuring we dont ruin our good team balance built from the last two seasons. We haven't bought a superstar player but we have added depth and options in a number of positions to give us a better overall first team. Will it be enough? Well going into the first game of the season, the
bookmakers dont seem to think so as we are predicted to come dead last still.
Pre-season
Pre-season wise I made a huge mistake. Normally my assistant arranges a 5-6 friendlies and I supplement with a few others to give us a large pre-season of 9 games ensuring we have solid match fitness and sharpness. However, my new assistant only arranged 3 and i completely forgot to get around to arranging a few more until the last week. Result wise we have done OK but we are not match fit and that is going to make this season even harder as we need to build fitness as well as trying to get off to a positive start.