How Aalesund find themselves playing in the OBOS-ligaen next season will remain one of the mysteries of the 2017 Eliteserien campaign. Because Trond Fredriksen's side were cruising towards a top five finish earlier in the summer. That seems an awful long time ago now and they've paid the price for non existent recruitment and failing to realise just how thin on the ground the Aalesund squad really was when a lack of form and the injuries started to bite. It's unacceptable for a team of their stature to have blown up so spectacularly and Fredriksen will do awfully well to convince the board that he is the right man to take them back up.
When on loan Dutch striker Lars Veldwijk fired home a hat trick in a 5-1 home win over Odd at Color Line Stadion back in June, Aalesund looked like they would have an excellent campaign. But he soon departed for bigger things and the club failed to recruit anyone with the same amount of firepower. Greek signing Thanasis Papazoglou just wasn't as prolific and Mostafa Abdellaoue's 16 goals in 30 games somehow wasn't enough. The season started with defensive woes, shipping in six goals in their first two games, and it ended in disaster. But in between there was a goalless draw at Lerkendal which seemed to start their defensive revival, the 5-1 win over Odd in the summer and of course the autumn victories against Rosenborg and Stromsgodset that very nearly saw them over the line. But by then Aalesund had given themselves too much to do and were at the mercy of results elsewhere. That's never a decent position to be in.
Two wins in the last 16 matches tells the tale of their dramatic downfall, and Fredriksen will be playing with a much smaller budget next season if he is given the vote of confidence to get the club out of its current mess. Aalesund will have to make sure their stay in the OBOS-ligaen is a brief one but, with the likes of Viking already down there and some ambitious first division clubs still planning an attack on the division in an attempt to reach the top tier, Aalesund's immediate revival might not be as straightforward as the club would think. They might yet have to pay a higher price for this inexplicable self implosion of a season.
