Union Saint-Gilloise boss Karel Geraerts wasn’t best pleased with his side’s performance as they were held to a 1-1 draw at Sint-Truiden as the kicked off their Jupiler Pro League campaign with just one more fixture to come before they host Rangers in the massive first leg of their Champions League third round qualifier.
And he has again made a desperate plea for reinforcements ahead of the meeting with the Ibrox men, predicting signings will arrive this week. The Belgians were forced to come from behind to salvage a draw after falling behind to a Daichi Hayashi strike for the home side with £10 million-rated Brighton loanee Simon Adingra grabbing a leveller with 19 minutes left. Their hosts finished a whopping 26 points behind them after the regular season last term and it was a disappointing start to the new campaign.
Geraerts is in his first senior managerial role since taking over the reins at Saint-Gilloise following predecessor Felice Mazzu’s move to Anderlecht where he replaced Vincent Kompany. It wasn’t the best start to life in the dug-out and Giovanni van Bronckhorst and his scouting team will have plenty to assess. Geraerts delivered his own verdict, saying: “I like to win so I'm a bit disappointed. On the other hand, our first half was not good enough. We were able to fight back in the second half and we deserved to equalise.
“All in all, this is a correct result. I really want to congratulate the players. We must not forget that this is the first match on an artificial pitch too. We're not used to it. We only did three and a half weeks of preparation and they six, so that means that our players still have to grow in the weeks to come and I'm confident."
Saint-Gilloise’s next game will be at home to Charleroi before the match against Rangers on August 2 which has been switched from their own Stade Joseph Marien to OH Leuven's Den Dreef Stadium and the Belgians are set to be without defender Koki Machida, on loan from J-League side Kashima Antlers, due to a hip injury but midfielder Senne Lynen returned after eight months out.
USG are trying to cope with the sale of star man Casper Nielsen to champions Club Brugge and Deniz Undav and Kaoru Mitoma returning to Brighton. And Geraerts said: “I am in constant communication with the board and I am convinced that they will quickly do their job so that we have a complete squad. I expect some reinforcements in the coming days. But despite everything, I have full confidence in my current group, which has prepared well.”
On Machida he added: "Koki has a hip injury. He needs some time to heal. He is working individually and I hope he will be back in the next few weeks."
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