All in all the season of Groningen was positive, they finished the regular one in 7th position and were eliminated in the playoff semi-final from Utrecht. They had a steady performance, alternating almost regularly wins (noteworthy the one with Ajax), defeats and draws, and fought for fifth place until March, then the performance dropped sharply and scrapped only 8 points from their last 10 games.
Coach Danny Buijs in three years on the Groningen bench has given a clear and defined identity to the team, a solid defense, but also an unspectacular play that in attack relies too much on the search for the opponents' mistakes. Their strengths and weaknesses immediately leap out from the main statistics, Trots van het Noorden conceded only 37 goals making them Eredivisie's fourth best defense.
However, they only scored 40 goals, making them the third worst attack along with Emmen and Willem II. The difficulty in finding the way of the goal is evidenced by the fact that no player reached double figures, Strand Larsen with 9 goals and El Messaoudi with 8 were Groningen's top scorers.
Groningen in the summer transfer market had made the most bombastic purchase of the whole Eredivisie signing Arjen Robben. However, the contribution of former Bayern Munich was very limited, due to continuous muscle injuries, he played only 173 minutes in the regular season.
Striker Alessio Da Cruz's season was positive, while two important midfielders like Matusiwa and Lundqvist were slightly below expectations. However, as mentioned, the defensive department was the one that showed the best things, above all goalkeeper Sergio Padt, who unfortunately will play for Ludogorets next season, and Japanese centre-back Ko Itakura.
