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After Thursday night’s embarrassing 1-0 loss in Iceland to Vikingur, serious questions are being asked of Lech’s new coach, the Dutchman John van den Brom, as well as the lack of money being spent to keep last season’s Polish champions in a strong position.
The problems started pretty much immediately. The recruitment seemed to be based around how little money could be spent. Artur Rudko was brought in because he was available on loan, even though Lech could’ve spent money on someone with a higher level of experience. He cost the team in the second leg of Champions League qualifying against Qarabag, although he has improved a little since that night last month. Losses in the league to Stal and Płock have followed, and whilst Lech are not quite in full-blown crisis mode, there is plenty of concern, and with each game the concern seems to be growing.
John van den Brom’s football, ironically, has been accused of being wooden. Perhaps this is a little harsh, but the team certainly doesn’t play with the confidence or style of last season under Maciej Skorża.
Again, you could argue this is a personnel issue. Early in the summer, Lech refused to meet Piast Gliwice’s reported €850,000 fee for winger Damian Kądzior, who would certainly be a marked improvement on their current options, and a kind of replacement for Jakub Kamiński who has moved onwards and upwards to Wolfsburg. International quality centre-back Bartosz Salomon is currently injured, and they were unwilling to pay Düsseldorf to bring Dawid Kownacki in permanently after his loan last year. This has led to a marked downgrade in both their starting line-up as well as their options off the bench.
It is yet to be seen where Michał Helik will choose to move, with Lech willing to spend €1.5 million to bring him to Bulgarska, but the possibility of that seems to be dwindling further and further by the day.
It is important not to panic; there is still time for them to get their act together and bring in some of the quality that they have undoubtedly lost. However, it is unlikely that they will be able to retain their Ekstraklasa title, or make it to the Europa Conference League group stages, without proper investment.
Really, I think that is where the problem lies. Even though they replaced the manager, and this does explain some of the early season issues, the lack of quality replacement for players they lost in the summer is the biggest issue in my opinion.
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