2023-10-04 04:45:00
In a publication on his Instagram account, Carl Hoefkens posted a photo at the foot of the Bueren mountain, with this caption: “Step by step #alltogether”. The photo and its commentary followed the victory in Louvain and while the program will move upmarket. For Standard, it will indeed be red October… then red November and the first half of red December as well.
From Sunday, and the reception of Club Bruges, the Rouches will enter a tunnel of nine matches which will be as many popular posters as passages to the revealer for the Liège team. In mid-December, and after the reception of Charleroi on the evening of the eighteenth day, we could be sure of the real level of Standard and its capacity to secure or not the Top 6 and the Champions playoffs.
It’s quite simple: with the exception of Union, leader of the Pro League, the Liégeois will meet all the current members of the Top 6, and sometimes twice (Club Bruges and Anderlecht) in a little less than two month. This calendar is the consequence of the impossibility of playing the matches in mirror images, as at the time of the back and forth phases which coincided.
What should we expect from this sequence at high altitude, for a team which is four points from sixth place but is twelfth, and still has the habits of a mid-table team, incapable of beating the red lantern at home (0-0 against Westerlo), and who is afraid against average teams despite the victory (2-3 at Eupen and 1-2 at OH Louvain)?
On the podium during the last five days
We must launch with the optimism of Carl Hoefkens to envisage immediate success, and ride the wave of the moment, namely: that Standard is the third best team over the last five days (nine out of fifteen). This almost corresponds to the close of the transfer window at the beginning of September and the arrivals of Moussa Djenepo, Steven Alzate, Isaac Hayden and Kamal Sowah. Can four new players change a team that much?
For part, obviously, but it will be interesting to see to what extent the Liège team is able to progress to achieve its objectives. And the sequence that lies ahead is promising. Standard has not yet won a match at Sclessin this season but it has not lost against Bruges for the equivalent of ten matches, in all competitions (five wins and five draws). Will he be able to kill two birds with one stone by extending the series with a first victory on the banks of the Meuse? For the return of Ronny Deila (and Philip Zinckernagel), there would be a form of symbolism.
Everyone still has in mind, in Liège, the victory against Bruges (3-0), followed by another success against Antwerp, with the same score, a month later, last season. This gave rise to the idea that the Rouches could play with the best. The memory also comes back that last season, Standard was able to get by in certain matches and that it was struggling against players who were less good than them, on paper. He took 50% of the points against the Top 8 teams, barely more (56%) against the eight teams who did not take part in the playoffs.
Standard resumed on the same basis, this season, against average or supposedly average teams but its only display, against Union, did not turn out to its advantage (0-1). It’s a good time to mark the occasion, therefore, or to be confronted with certain limits. After Bruges, and the international break, Vanheusden and his teammates will continue at home against Anderlecht then away to Ghent, two teams against whom the Rouches have only won once in nine matches (Anderlecht, four defeats and four draws elsewhere). ), and never in the last eight confrontations (Ghent, six defeats and two draws).
If Standard wants to maintain the illusion that it is capable of playing in the big leagues, now is when it will count. It will be progress step by step, or stay at the foot of the pass.
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