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I don’t think we’d had such a situation before: a cup-winning coach needing a public vote of confidence just half a year after delivering the unexpected trophy and Top 6 placement, having just secured the Conference League’s next phase (with all the luck in the world on his side, granted) for the first time in club’s history and outperformed its league projection (a conservative one, granted) to a considerable degree. Unusual, but perhaps increasingly more common now with the flurry of rich owners. The scope of one club’s potential today may look very different in a few months. Thus, Tomáš Janotka is suddenly looking at a prove-it spring despite proving himself at almost every step of the way so far.

The Outlook

Despite earning 43 regular-season points where 38.2 were projected for them in summer 2024, Olomouc didn’t get a glowing forecast a year later. Courtesy of the twin departure of Jakub Pokorný and Filip Zorvan, coupled with the longterm injury to their talismanic shooter Jan Kliment, Sigma were suddenly looking at 35 projected points and a greater likelihood to go down than return to UEFA competitions. In that light, slashing their prospects of even forming the bottom 6 to a mere 4% must be seen as success, much like Olomouc being on track to more or less repeat their 24/25 regular-season feat (points-wise). They’ve done OK.

The perspective is key: Bohemians of 23/24, after their own (much briefer) European adventure, were good for 36.3 points at Christmas. In a more relatable example, Slovácko of 22/23 were projected to earn 43.8 points after a full autumn spent battling on multiple fronts, including the continental one. Their chance at returning to UEFA competitions was much higher then (33%), but that was also due to them still being alive in MOL Cup — possibly the only real, entirely unjustifiable failure of Janotka’s side. Of course, Sigma now have a rich owner and general sporting manager in full swing; something they didn’t have in place in summer, and which now means more urgency with regards to the rest of the season. The Top 6 — somehow a rather unlikely prospect at 22% — will be seen as the bar to clear.

Peak Gain: Jablonec 2:0 (home) / Boleslav 4:1 (away)
Peak Loss: Zlín 0:5 (away)

Toughest Assignments Left: Slavia (A), Plzeň (H), Jablonec (A)
Softest Assignments Left: Boleslav (H), Bohemians (H), Slovácko (H)

The Big Question
Can set pieces, part of a great xGF struggle, get going again?

Janotka’s Sigma continues to be a consistently solid defensive side, with its non-penalty xGAExpected Goals Against (xGA) estimates how many goals a team should have conceded based on shot quality, location, and context. ranking 3rd and all three channels (left, right, centre) landing inside the Top 5 for positional defending. On average, Olomouc’s opponents only get to finish 5.8 times per game from positional attacks, the second best mark in the league. The off-the-ball structure never died.

What Janotka has now decidedly failed to impose is a consistently working plan on the ball, resulting in the second-lowest average non-penalty xGFExpected Goals For (xGF) estimates how many goals a team should have scored based on shot quality, location, and context. (0.8) last season, along with the league-worst central channel getting shut out on a record 8 occasions, and only more of the same this season — where 0.81 non-penalty xGF is somehow good for 13th place instead of 15th, and an even worse output down the middle (0.12 xGF per game compared to 0.16 in 24/25) is enough for 15th instead of dead last. Sigma have still been toothless offensively.

The thing about the two versions of Janotka’s Olomouc: one had attacking set pieces on steroids, the other very obviously doesn’t. Last winter, Sigma led the league with 7 corner kick and overall 12 set piece goals, which translated into a full-season output of 17 goals despite only earning 12th best average xGF. This winter, they have yet to score following a corner kick even once, producing a league-worst 0.18 xGF/game from non-penalty set pieces. Currently, they are on a 14-game drought without a single set piece goal, while averaging a poor 0.6 wasted set-piece chances over the stretch (only Teplice have been less prolific).

Why the sudden change?

First of all, the 24/25 rates were clearly unsustainable, so some sort of regression was basically a given. But the fact it’s from one extreme to another — instead of the more common mild drop — is furthermore a product of Zorvan’s departure, not compensated by Dominik Janošek’s arrival after all (he assisted on one of the set piece goals earlier in the season before effectively vanishing), as well as Jiří Sláma’s absence later on in the fall.

The X-Factor
Andrův stadion doing the heavy-lifting

Olomouc still have six home stands to go on the regular season and the line-up is frankly not the most frightening: Hradec, Plzeň, Bohemians, Karviná, Boleslav, Slovácko. That’s excellent news, because if something went (better than) according to plan for Sigma this past autumn, it was their showings at Andrův stadion. Slavia, Sparta, Jablonec and Liberec all combined for a measly 2.76 xGF in Olomouc, setting up the scene for Sigma’s splending average of two points per home game (Top 3 mark) and an even more formidable 80% share of all goals scored at ‘Andrák’ (second Slavia are “only” responsible for 75.8% of all goals Eden has seen).

This record is, as you’d expect, mostly powered by the defence. Olomouc have remarkably only conceded twice at home (8:2 score), with all but one of their clean sheets occurring in Haná. Accordingly, Sigma have posted the league’s best average home xGA (0.53) and must now look to improve their offensive output from the 13th-ranked 1.00 xGF per home game.

The peculiar thing about the two Sigma MVP frontrunners is that they don’t tend to fuck up often, but when they do, it either comes in bunches (for Aboulaye Sylla), or it properly stings (for Jan Koutný). One more aspect: our overall impression of both is heavily influenced by their (sometimes sub-par) continental performances which naturally don’t factor in here.

Sylla had exactly four poor games all season, which is not many, but in two of those he was a necessary half-time sub while acting out as a walking red card (Mladá Boleslav and Dukla), while on another instance he did actually get sent off (Plzeň). That’s not what a coach wants from their defender no. 1, even if Sylla ended up preventing danger far more often than facilitating it (38 vs 18 times), outright denying a goal three times. As for Koutný, he costed Sigma even less on balance, being all over the place in the first Sparta encounter (much like Sylla) and then screwing up in the Zlín debacle when Olomouc were already 100% screwed.

Other than that, all was rosy for the duo who most likely fight it out for the MVP crown till the end. With Daniel Vašulín departing, the closest rivals are Matěj Hadaš, who’s at least no longer pointless (four goal contributions) but still hardly inspiring as an MVP candidate, and fellow fullback Jiří Sláma, with both facing a challenge for playing time from Filip Slavíček.

The Wild Card

With about four winter arrivals able to play on the right or left wing, one cannot be sure how strong a position Ahmad Ghali will hold coming into 2026, but you’d imagine that pretty strong based on what he did with the limited amount of playing time in 2025. Across what totals a mere 5.5 starts, the former Liberec star delivered 3.11 expected points to his team via primary goal contributions alone (two goals, one assist), all the while being a primary creator of five more wasted chances. That may not seem like many, but when I tell you only Simion Michez has done better (8, in only 6.3 stars — another great output), it kinda does, doesn’t it?

The Shake-Up

No club has undergone a more ground-shifting shake-up and you can mostly see the thinking behind it. Sigma needed a better partner to Michal Beran than Radim Breite, and they most likely got him in Péter Baráth. Sigma needed more options for the no. 10 with David Tkáč out longterm, and they got those in foreign wild cards Fabijan Krivak and Dario Grgić or the returning hero of 22/23 Antonín Růsek. Sigma needed cover for if Kliment doesn’t come back strong, and they got that in Václav Sejk or John Paul Dembe. They’ve arguably overdone it in quantity at some positions, and money dished out too, but you can’t argue with the broad reasoning. What will be especially interesting to follow, though, is how Olomouc cope in some variation of a three-at-the-back formation Janotka has been testing throughout the winter camp (and is not accustomed to deploying throughout his career).

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