After one unsuccessful debut of Jorge Jesus at the club, last year, Sporting fans were counting on a much better season, this time out, but in fact this was an ever worse overall performance by ‘Verde-e-Brancos’. By the time we were at the 9th round, Leões had already lost 9 points and, in the beginning of February, coach Jorge Jesus was already admitting the title to be very hard to get, when Sporting was already 10 points behind the leaders. Combined with a 3 mere points campaign in Champions League (Sporting ended last, even behind Legia Warsow), a quartef-final knock-out by Chaves in Taça de Portugal, and not being able to pass the group stage of Taça da Liga (being second to Setúbal), league’s very disappointing 3rd place completed what was a terrible season for Sporting. There will be very little tolerance for another season far from titles and overall successes.
The squad proved to be short in depth and, every time a key player was unable to play, the whole team suffered. That was mainly perceptible when captain Adrien had one of his two periods off with injury, during which Sporting kept underperforming and losing important points. The likes of William Carvalho and Rui Patrício were also visibly many steps ahead in quality than most of their teammates. The bet part of the season for Sporting were two individual aspects: the discovery of hot new talent, skillful winger Gelson Martins, and the extraordinary goalscoring form by a new signing, Dutch striker Bas Dost, who competed with Messi for the golden boot until the very end of the season.
Some of those key players are passing the ideal age for a big international contract. Some important departures are expected, and there are many doubts on whether will the club have enough acquisitive power to attrack legitimate replacements to those departing stars, as well as to improve what is already a weak squad.
