This season has been one to forget for RFC Seraing in the Belgian Pro League. In the 2020/21 season, the club from the city of Liège were promoted to the top flight via the promotion/relegation playoff, the first time the club has made it to the top division in their current form. Now, two seasons later, they are heading back down, after a dreadful campaign where they have only won five times all season.
After a relatively poor start to the season, José Jeunechamps was sacked in October after only being appointed in July, something that came as a surprise to many. His replacement, Jean-Sébastien Legros, has not fared any better, with the Belgian only managing 2 wins in his 17 matches in charge.
This tactical analysis and scout report will take a look at some of the struggles that Seraing have had this season, identify what the club could do to improve next season and analyse whether Jeunechamps was potentially sacked too soon.
Lack of chance creation and ball progression leads to a lack of chances
When trying to find the root cause of Seraing’s troubles this season in the Belgian top flight, it is hard to look past their lack of chance creation. In fact, the Liège based side rank dead last in essentially all the key attacking metrics among the Belgian Pro League sides this season. Some of the attacking metrics they rank last in are: goals scored (26), total shots (228, with 6.82 per 90 minutes and a 31.1% shot accuracy), touches in the penalty area (307, 9.18 per 90 minutes), and key passes (48, 1.44 per 90 minutes).
While it will be hard to analyse every single statistic mentioned, the main thing we will look at is their inability to progress the ball vertically into the final third to create chances, which lead to shots and then goals, and some potential reasons as to why that is the case.
The data viz graphic above shows a recent sample size of the struggles that Seraing have had playing the ball vertically and progressing into the final third. Firstly, the majority of the progressive passes from the Belgian side have been long balls played from either the goalkeeper or from inside their defensive third, with usually nothing resulting from it. The graphic gets even more barren when we look at the final third for Seraing, with them not playing many progressive passes into the penalty area in their previous five matches. This lack of chance creation and inability to progress the ball vertically go hand-in-hand, with this graphic able to reinforce that point.
