Old-fashioned football, lack of versatility and ability to mix up things, sloppy defending all season and, most importantly, absence of spark saw giants Gothenburg suffering another very disappointing campaign that in the end saw them finishing in the bottom half of the table.
The start to the campaign wasn’t great – four draws in the first five rounds – but at least Gothenburg played some relatively solid football early on and they lost only once in the first two months. That said coach Lennartsson found himself under fire quickly as the number of wins was insufficient, but mostly because Gothenburg were playing unattractive football with lots of physical duels and simple long crosses towards their two veteran strikers.
The pressure in the first part of the season kept mounting and uninspiring defeats against the direct rivals for the top places Hacken, Djurgarden and Norrkoping brought predominantly negative atmosphere in the dressing room come the summer. Lennartsson was released exactly at the midway point of the season after a humiliating 2:4 defeat was suffered against Orebro.
Unfortunately his replacement Alf Westerberg failed to improve the displays much and, as he didn’t have many options for rotation, he kept using the same 4-4-2 formation and pretty much the same starters. With just 3 wins from his first 11 games in charge, Westerberg lost all hope to catch the top three and, as the campaign was ended on a three-game losing streak, it is very questionable if he will remain in charge for the new season.
In a campaign with very little to cheer about the two main positives were the displays of the 18-year-old goalkeeper Dahlberg and the solid campaign that Rieks had. The Dane finished the season with 5 goals and 7 assists, which was good considering how hard it was for Gothenburg to create chances throughout the entire campaign.
