In the end, Toulouse’s season petered out somewhat after an impressive start to the campaign that harboured aspirations of making it into Europe. However, the departure of key personnel as well as an uninspiring period in the autumn and beyond resulted in a 10th place finish.
They finished two places lower than the season before (8th) but it again reaffirms their establishment in Ligue 1. They have flirted with European qualification in the last few years, achieving it in 2009, and after an impressive unbeaten start to the campaign, it looked all the more probable this time around. Defeat to eventual champions Paris Saint-Germain in September did not deter their progress and went on an unbeaten run till the end of the October, where things started to unravel.
Defeat to Lille in the Coupe de la Ligue thanks to Nolan Roux’s winner in the dying embers of extra-time culminated in Alain Casanova’s troops going into a spiral of abject form which evidently had a detrimental effect on their prosperous ambitions. They could only manage three wins in 17 league games after that, which is mightily disappointing for a team possessing some promising young talent mixed with experience at this level.
They have also been the draw specialists, conjuring up 12 in the league in total and just breaking even with their goal difference – scoring 49 and conceding 47. In the games where they should have perhaps picked up three points, we may very well have been talking about hopes in Europe next year but hindsight can be cruel at times.
Nevertheless, the club have had to deal with some major departures in the last year, no more so than Daniel Congre. An ever-present stalwart for his club for four years, he sought pastures new with then-champions Montpellier for €5m. That was a huge blow. He was the captain of the football club but the lure of Champions League football was understandably too much to resist.
Then there was the departure of Moussa Sissoko to Newcastle United. This inevitability occurred five months sooner than the club had planned with the Frenchman’s contract coming to an end in the summer. But, they could not turn down substantial money for a player who would have left for nothing – regardless of how important he had been to the team.
The club were shrewd with signing a replacement and brought in PSG’s talented holding midfielder Adrien Rabiot. In the latter part of the season he showed the undoubted potential he has, sitting in the base of midfield alongside the likes of Etienne Didot and his namesake Etienne Capoue – who is ironically a target for PSG. It has been a good education for the 18-year-old who has the potential to become a star of a player. Toulouse will want him back for another season on loan, there is no doubt about that.
So in a campaign of frustration for le Téfécé, there will be the odd thought of ‘what might have been?’ Nevertheless, all things considered, it has not been the worst of seasons as they lost some key personnel that would diminish any team of similar calibre. It has been far from spectacular, been abject at times and that run from October till March was borderline atrocious. But a top-10 finish reaffirms their status as an established Ligue 1 club.
FINAL POSITION: 10th
Review by @RossMackiewicz