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For a while now, Bohemians have been something of a symbol of mediocrity and I myself have not exactly fought the broad idea. That being said, it’s not like every Bohemians season absolutely must be tagged as “mediocre”; this one being a prime example. In terms of table standings, ‘Klokani’ have been the unluckiest side — borderline Top 6 per xPExpected Points (xP) measure a team's likely point gain from a particular game; not only based on sum xGF and xGA, but also based on distribution of shots (ie. five 0.01 xG shots won't give you the same chance for a win as one 0.05 xG shot). but borderline relegation play-off candidate in reality — and a mirror opposite of teams we’ve just profiled, tanking their season horribly in the last three (goalless) rounds of 2025.

The Outlook

Teplice, Slavia and Jablonec. Three clubs Bohemians no longer need to face, and three clubs who absolutely stole a fortune from the Vršovice club this season, representing a suitable microcosm of Bohemians’ season at large. Scoring just once in those six games, ‘Klokani’ left an incredible 8.5 expected points on the table against these three opponents, lagging at least 1.3 points behind their expected gain on each occasion. It’s even more incredible when you repeat majority of that line-up out loud: the reigning champions and runaway leaders, alongside a longstanding Top 3 side who were briefly second as recently as in Round 13.

That’s the good news: Bohemians not having to face two thirds of the current Top 3 anymore. The worrying aspect of their schedule is that if ‘Klokani’ don’t hit the ground running and don’t mine the first 4 spring rounds, the chances are they are going to get very nervous very quickly. Locked into a new Jaroslav Veselý contract, they’d be staring at an Olomouc-Liberec-Plzeň-Sparta sequence likely not far off the bottom 3, and that’s hardly a situation you fancy.

Then again, all of their 5 wins this season were the lucky undeserved kind, so who knows…

Peak Gain: Dukla 2:0 (away)
Peak Loss: Karviná 0:3 (home)

Toughest Assignments Left: Plzeň (A), Sparta (H)
Softest Assignments Left: Dukla (H), Pardubice (H), Zlín (H)

The Big Question
How much damage did both flanks absorb over the winter?

If, or rather when, Samuel Isife gets confirmed as the new arrival at Ďolíček, it will set up an interesting situation: Bohemians will be getting a solid player most clubs will envy them for, yet all the same someone who has considerable potential to screw up their autumn foundation even further. Sinyavskiy leaving is the obvious thorn in the side, more so that there’s no Hybš to step in for him, while Jan Kovařík and incoming Milan Havel are far from guarantees to effectively function as left backs in 2026. It’s near certain Bohemians won’t own a Top 6 two-way left channel in May. But the other side is the proverbial tipping point.

The home game against Plzeň (0:1 loss) was the first time Peter Kareem got nominated into the starting line-up. Until then, across the first 10 rounds, Bohemians were generating 0.17 xGFExpected Goals For (xGF) estimates how many goals a team should have scored based on shot quality, location, and context. per game down the right side (9th-best rate); since then, the same route has produced 0.41 xGF a game for the very best rate in the league. Jablonec and Slavia, second and third team over the span, are roughly 0.08 xGF/game behind, an equivalent of a half-decent shot.

Now, it’s likely Kareem isn’t coming out of the line-up. But as long as he’s shifted to the left or pushed up to the right wing to accomodate Isife, it’s going to be a choice Bohemians should not be making. They’ve sourced a record 67.8% of their non-penalty xGF (itself the 6th highest) from positional attacks, and moving both Sinyavskiy and Kareem — even if it’s by literal inches in the case of the latter — seems like an unnecessary risk taken by a fragile side.

Both fullbacks formed an undeniable backbone of Bohemians’ attacking efforts.

The X-Factor
Everything happening in the attacking box, all at once

We all seem to remember the big misses, and who wouldn’t? Drchal vs Slavia. Yusuf vs Jablonec, in what was the very next home game. Drchal again vs Hradec, again at Ďolíček, and the Ramírez penalty with a botched Kadlec follow-up in the same game for good measure. Hůlka vs Teplice in another home stand. These are all massive reasons why Bohemians only earned 0.8 points per home game, and especially why they are responsible for a measly 31.6% of all goals scored at Ďolíček. They are scars that will survive this season.

Funnily enough, Bohemians have not employed the worst finishers out there, though. In terms of pre-shot/post-shot xG comparison, they are just one goal behind their expected finishing output, which is disappointing but all of Dukla, Slovácko and Olomouc have better reasons to complain about their own. What makes Bohemka’s situation actually depressing is that even on a good(ish) day, some stuff still went horribly wrong. Amazingly, Bohemians have so far had the pleasure of facing only three goalkeepers who found themselves below the water at the end of the matchday, and in the case of Jakub Lapeš it was by a literal hair (0.01 goals allowed above expectation). On the other hand, ‘Klokani’ had as many as 9 above average goalkeeping shifts to overcome which they decidedly didn’t do consistently enough.

There are merely three runaway team MVPs, and only one of them isn’t staying on — the clearest of the clear-cut. Vlasiy Sinyavskiy not only played pretty much everything there was to play, but he made for an increasingly hungrier beast. A one-man wrecking crew, no other player made more successful dribbles to set up danger (14), no player made even close to the number of open-play crosses for the same (18), and he did it all as an outright fullback.

Landing a hand to 7 goals may not sound too impressive, but Sinyavskiy did it exclusively in game states that mattered (directly on indirectly assisting on either equalizers, or go-ahead goals), and with only one of the contributions coming after a set piece, he’s signed under half of all his team’s goals from open play (6/12). That’s not going to be easy to replace. Naturally.

The good thing is that for some remaining frontrunners, the only way is up. Aleš Čermák sits on an insufficient 4 points, but has already produced more primary chance-creating actions than in 24/25 (12 vs 10). Yusuf Helal has somehow earned more TotW nominations (4) than points (3) and should be eager to prove himself as a veteran who’s been publicly called out by his coach. Speaking of calling out, the inevitable phase-out of the departing Lukáš Hůlka will likely mean Bohemka shooting itself in the foot. Again. He enjoyed one of the better falls.

The Wild Card

Can Jan Matoušek, on 84.2 MVP points after an autumn spent in the treatment room, be feasibly called a wild card? He could catch up, you know. Can Václav Drchal, on 160.3 MVP points after a similarly anonymous autumn despite the numerous opportunities, be called the same? *shrugs reluctantly* But if The Big Question above gets a positive response, there’s only one suitable wild card: the man who’s shot up to over 300 MVP points despite not participating on a single goal scored. The one and only, somewhat miserable Peter Kareem.

The Shake-Up

Can two left-footed centre backs work next to each other in a back four? We may soon get an answer to the age-old question, with David Lischka vying for a place next to Jan Vondra or potentially even Matěj Kadlec. Lischka once bizarrely received a call to play the right centre back in a back three by Pavel Hapal, so this proposition seems like no experiment whatsoever in comparison. Fielding him as a middle centre back and finally banking on the stagnating Ondřej Kukučka by his right side might, however, end up being the more sensible pick.

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