Viking scores and scores – and wins and wins – VG

The 2-1 win over Mjøndalen is the Vikings’ fifth win in a row, the seventh in a row without a loss, and Bjarne Berntsen’s team has really found a way to score:

With 22 goals in the same seven games, there are more than three on average, and perhaps even more impressive: the management of scoring chances. The 22 goals have come on 42 scoring occasions, that is, goals on all other opportunities. That is super statistic.

– It’s because we do a lot of that. We focus a lot on the offensive game in training. I think they feel safe when they put themselves in those positions, Bjarne Berntsen tells VG.

– We’ve been good at it with Bjarne all along. There are not many games that we have played without scoring. It’s one of our strengths, says match winner Tommy Høiland, who had to jump in the middle of the match as a substitute for Veton Berisha, who was injured in the leg.

He describes the heel fanatic as an “instinct,” and for the first time since July 4 against Start, he got at least one round of playing time. Then the veteran also scored the winning goal in the 69th minute.

– It has been a bit chaotic the other times I have entered. They have given me a few minutes at the end and slightly different positions. I can play inside runner, but he’s the forward I’m better at, says Høiland.

It could also rise to 3-1 after a good Viking attack, led by the field’s best Zymer Bytyqi, but against Mjøndalen Viking it almost ended up being unusually ineffective for them to have “only” two goals in seven chances, according to VG’s tally. But that was enough to turn the 0-1 into 2-1.

Reborn Mjøndalen

Because they sank early. Mjøndalen coach Vegard Hansen had acted after four defeats in the last four and an alarming 1-12 goal difference. Hansen had switched to a 4-3-3 variant after starting the season with a baseline and still 4-4-1-1 in the previous round.

But now he was returning to the formation that they spent a long period in the Obosligaen with success and promotion, and with that change, captain Christian Gauseth (36) was also expelled from the team.

It happened in the first game after the Mjøndalen captain launched a tirade against his own teammates in the half-time interview with Eurosport in the middle of their 2-0 loss to Sarpsborg last Saturday:

Subsequently, Coach Hansen denied there was a connection between the state of the bench and Gauseth’s explosion in the previous round of the series.

– Zero percent, says Vegard Hansen.

– Vegard brings out the team he thinks is best. So a 36-year-old man with a shell body should be grateful to be with him. I play when he says I will play, says Gauseth himself.

The grips worked for Mjøndalen anyway. The Browns came out in a hundred, went straight to the attack and landed the first corner kick of the game after just 20 seconds. The tone was set, the aggressiveness was clear and the team’s second corner came just two minutes later.

Then Viking had barely had passes to the opposite half of the field, and it would be worse for the guests: Semb Aasmundsen’s corner was at the back post for today’s captain Markus Nakkim. He headed for Sondre Liseth, and the attacker also used his head to steer the lead toward Mjøndalen.

The Vikings gradually came more, but it took time. In fact, Mjøndalen was able to counter the 2-0 before the Vikings had a chance to score, but the situation only gave Shuaibu Ibrahim a double accident:

First, he ran offside, according to the assistant referee, with a pass from Fredrik Brustad, and after sending the ball into the net, without counting, the Mjøndalen player collided with the Viking goalkeeper Iven Austbø. Ibrahim suffered so much that he had to leave.

Viking got the draw they wanted before the break. Zymer Bytyqi scored for the fifth time in three games.

– Today we are not so good. But we took the war, says the Viking wing, it moved from right to left earlier this season, and it has happened in tune with Siddis’s strong line with seven games in a row without a loss (five wins).

In the second half, Høiland became the man of the day, and the 2-1 goal came from another substitute, Sebastian Sebulonsen. World-class training?

– Or call it luck. But it was a timely substitution. Tommy is in the right place, and that’s his cutting edge experience, says Bjarne Berntsen.

See more Elite Series stats on VG Live.

The elite series

SEE MORE

• Champions League qualifier
• Europa League qualifier
• Descent rating
• Decline

VG discount codes

A business collaboration with kickback.no