Charleroi started the season on fire, 6 wins in first 6 rounds, with Zebras topping the table for the first 12 rounds before starting to lose momentum from mid-November onwards.
Run of 3 consecutive defeats in November followed by another awful series of 5 losses in a row right after Christmas not only saw Charleroi losing top spot, but come February the Zebras were also already out of the top 4.
This decline in form wasn’t injury-related and coach Belhocine never figured out how to improve things as he was using pretty much the same tactics that brought the many early wins, just the defensive stability was no longer there in 2021.
In the end single league win in the 15 rounds played in 2021 resulted in Charleroi never even standing a chance of making the play-offs.
In terms of injuries the big issue late in the season was the absence of playmaker Morioka, but wingers Fall and Gholizadeh played well all campaign and they both were the most constant performers in the squad. All the defenders underperformed though and this is area that is likely to see many transfer changes occurring in the summer. Also Charleroi will be in the hunt for new main target man this off-season.
