Song Lam Nghe An needs to make efforts to stay in the league.

2023/2024 season,Lam River Nghe AnIt seemed like they had to play a life-or-death playoff. Luckily, Dong A Thanh Hoa's draw against Hong Linh Ha Tinh helped the Nghe An team squeeze through the narrow door to successfully stay in the league.

This is the season when financial difficulties forced Song Lam Nghe An to say goodbye to its key players. They are captain Que Ngoc Hai, midfielder Pham Xuan Manh, Tran Dinh Tien, goalkeeper Nguyen Van Hoang and young defender Ho Van Cuong... These players were the backbone of Song Lam Nghe An's domestic squad in the previous season.

However, Song Lam Nghe An can only rely on young players to fill those gaps. As a result, lack of experience, lack of squad depth and poor physical foundation have caused Song Lam Nghe An to run out of steam at decisive moments.

In addition, the quality of foreign players of the Nghe An team in the 2023/2024 season is also not up to standard. Mario Zebic only played at an average level. Meanwhile, Raphael Succes is one of the worst foreign players in the history of Song Lam Nghe An. Fortunately, Michael Olaha had the best season of his career to save the Nghe An team from a disappointing season.

It was thought that this "near-death" in the 2023/2024 season would make the Board of Directors of Song Lam Nghe An gain profound experience to make changes in the 2024/2025 season.

But no! It was still the farewell of the pillars with many years of experience fighting in V.League. That was Mai Sy Hoang who had a very good 2023/2024 season with 2 goals and 3 assists. That was Dang Van Lam, the most experienced midfielder of Song Lam Nghe An at that time.

As usual, to replace these players, Song Lam Nghe An promoted promising young players to the first team with the hope that these talents will "grow up quickly".

However, "who will mark" and "who will guide" the players so that they can quickly adapt to the V.League is still a difficult problem. Because with a squad of mostly U23 players, Song Lam Nghe An can only have young players mark and guide younger players or less experienced players mark and guide less experienced players.

Remember, the progress of players like Nguyen Van Viet, Ho Van Cuong or Nguyen Quang Vinh is thanks to regularly playing alongside experienced seniors like Que Ngoc Hai, Pham Xuan Manh or Nguyen Trong Hoang.

Along with that is the weakness of foreign players. This has been a difficult problem for Song Lam Nghe An in recent years. In the 2024/2025 season, learning from the experience of the 2023/2024 season, Song Lam Nghe An has quickly decided on foreign players to stabilize the squad and avoid "grabbing the little ones" like the case of Raphael Succes.

However, the quality has not improved much. Sebastian Zaracho had to wait until the second phase to find a common voice with his teammates in defense, Benjamin Kuku played at an average level. Meanwhile,Michael Olahaa clear decline in performance compared to last season.

In particular, fans were somewhat confused when the coaching staff of Song Lam Nghe An did not add foreign players to the midfield, which is full of young players and needs a sweeper to maintain balance in the gameplay.

The price to pay is that Song Lam Nghe An fell into the red zone and coach Pham Anh Tuan "lost his seat". This is the third consecutive year that the team has changed coaches mid-stream. The same refrain is repeated over and over again: poor performance at the beginning of the season, change coaches, improved performance at the end of the season and is retained as head coach for the new season. This is also one of the reasons why Song Lam Nghe An has not played well in recent years.

Returning to phase 2 of the 2024/2025 season, the Board of Directors of Song Lam Nghe An football team has made moves to correct mistakes to save the situation. That is, bringing back to Vinh stadium two old players Hoang Van Khanh and Ho Khac Ngoc.

These were the right decisions as this duo added quality and experience to the Song Lam Nghe An squad. The defense played more solidly, the Nghe An team played with more definition. As a result, coach Phan Nhu Thuat and his team earned 17 points after 14 matches compared to 6 points after the first 10 matches of the season.

However, the situation of Song Lam Nghe An is still very critical. Teacher and studentCoach Phan Nhu Thuatwill have to try their best in the last two matches to be able to stay in the league successfully.

If they are successful in staying in the league, the leadership of Song Lam Nghe An needs to make revolutions to avoid giving fans heart attacks like in recent seasons./.