Football Season Guide

Westerlo were lucky to avoid the relegation struggles last season. They avoided finishing the regular season in the bottom 4 by a single point. Defensively things were poor all season but thanks to the 13 league goals from attacking midfielder Madsen Westerlo did enough to secure their survival before the play-offs came. Right before the play-off run the coach for 3 years De Roeck was sacked. Used a caretaker manager during the play-offs as in those 10 games Westerlo played only for pride. Many young players got minutes in these matches. In the summer Tommy Simons was convinced to take charge right after leading Dender to the top flight. Simons now has a tough task to build a competitive team with very limited finances. He is yet to make any significant new signings (the 2 new players are age 17 and 18), while at the same time some key pieces left. The departure of 3 centre-backs means that right now there are only 2 typical centre-backs on the books and Haidara is yet to start a league game in his young career. Striker Vermant also returned to his parent club. He will be missed as it was his crucial goals in the last 5 rounds of the regular season that saved Westerlo from finishing in the bottom 4. The new manager hopes that soon a significant number of players could be joining but for now he’s working with a small squad. The main lack of depth is in defence. Right now Simons can’t use his preferred 5-3-2 formation simply because of the lack of defenders. It seems the new manager will re-qualify holding midfielder Arthur Piedfort into a centre-back this season. Piedfort excelled in his midfield role last season but he is needed elsewhere. The hole in midfield could be filled by Haspolat, despite the fact that the Turk struggled often last season.