Stabæk, still feeling relieved after just about surviving at the end of the previous season, embarked on the new campaign with a modified squad but one that still felt pretty undermanned in terms of experience and quality across the pitch.
Henning Berg cut out a pretty sombre and uninspired figure for most of the early weeks of the season and it projected to his squad, with the team getting off to a poor start of six losses in the opening nine games. Berg quickly jumped ship at the opportunity of working somewhere else, joining Omonia Nicosia from Cyprus. That forced the Stabæk management to act swiftly and indeed they went for former manager and experienced operator Jan Jönsson.
That proved their best decision of the season by some distance as the new coach gradually transformed the team from the outskirts of Oslo and they enjoyed a much better second half of the season. Results were initially mixed and they failed to really move clear of the bottom four for a while, going five games without a win in July and August. There were also fears about the goalscoring potential of the team after the loss of main striker Franck Boli shortly before the end of the tansfer window.
Yet Stabæk, who have usually relied on youngsters instead of signing too many new players in recent years, made some shrewd signs to give the manager a more stable and balanced squad and that had a very good result in the autumn.
The team went on a streak of one loss in their last 11 games and that was against the new champions Molde. They played with good discipline and structure and worked very well as a unit across the pitch, securing five clean sheets in a row during a run of games in October. They eventually sealed safety with games to spare and can look back on a pretty positive season overall, with potential to grow into something even more significant next season.
