Andrey Santos is one of the loan players we’re most excited this season. He’s back at Strasbourg where he did well last season, and he’s started with a bang. He scored again at the weekend, and made it into Ligue 1’s team of the week.
It was a lovely cushioned header to make it 2 goals in 2 games. Sadly it wasn’t enough for the Alsatians, who let a 3-1 lead slip and ended up losing 4-3.
But still – Lyon are a strong side, and there will be plenty of positives that Liam Rosenior can take from this game, especially in the form of Santos’ performance in the middle. He will be one of the foundations of this team, just as he was in the back half of last season.
You can see the team in the image embedded here:
You can see Andrey’s goal in the clip embedded here:
Strasbourg’s prospects for the season
There are a vital two weeks of international break now, which hopefully can be used to get the defence sorted. They look like they’re going to be an attacking threat all year, it’s just a question of whether they can stop leaking goals. The arrival of fellow Chelsea player and our first team goalkeeper from last season, Djordje Petrovic, should help, but Rosenior is going to need more than that to prevent this season turning into a relegation battle much like last year.
With so many young players on the books, it was always going to be a battle – but no team can afford to make a habit of letting two goal leads slip away.
There will be some who say we could have aimed higher in terms of a loan destination for Andrey – but we’d rather see him as a key player at a smaller side than struggling for minutes in the Premier League.