Konya should have absolutely finished the season in higher place as they have been in European Cups zone till 2019’s early weeks, but a run of only one victory in the last 15 fixtures made them remain out of the top five. Coach Riza Calimbay was in charge till November. He was weirdly fired after the team defeated Ankaragucu.
According to some rumours, his successor Aykut Kocaman was very familiar with the city and the team. So he has done very well till January and Konya reached the 4th place. However, things started getting worse. Injuries of some important players including Ferhat Oztorun, Ugur Demirok and Jens Jonsson made them lose their defensive strength. Until they tasted their last victory of the season against Alanya, they failed to score in 6 out of 11 previous fixtures. In fact, all their offensive responsbility were on the shoulders of a few players including Jahovic, Fofana, Yatabare and Omer Ali Sahiner. So they really struggled to produce anything when any of them was unable to feature because of any reasons. At this point, Omer Ali was the best contributor with his 8-goal & 4-assist performance.
For any team except the big four, the 8th place should be welcomed well, but it is not considered as a success for coach Aykut Kocaman, because the season’s 2nd part was a huge disappointment. If the board continue to keep on working with him, they will want to see a much better performance from this one. In order to that, the coach will have to bring more quality in the summer transfer market.
