What a catastrophic season this was for Lens.
It started with them losing their first seven league games, a historic feat in the worst possible sense. Coach Alain Casanova - kept on after just missing out on promotion last season - was sacked in the midst of that run, and Lens made an in-house appointment to replace him, turning to club legend Eric Sikora.
He did start to make an impact, and their form from late September to the turn of the year would have had some optimistic members of the northern club's vast support dreaming of a push for the promotion play-offs.
However, they could not keep it up, and Lens won just twice in 15 games from mid-January to late April, while also being knocked out of the Coupe de France on penalties in the quarter-finals by third-tier minnows Les Herbiers.
Only a flourish in the last few weeks lifted them to a 14th-place finish, yet that was actually as high as they got at any point in the entire campaign. Sikora was sacked days after their season ended, with the 1998 French champions now contemplating an eighth season in the second tier in 11 years.
Satisfactions were few and far between, but Jean-Kevin Duverne and Jean-Ricner Bellegarde are promising talents, and Spanish striker Cristian Lopez got into double figures in terms of goals. It says it all that goalkeeper Jeremy Vachoux was probably their standout performer though.
