How many losses can he endure before the “Helstrup realization” comes?

A couple of years with access has made us well accustomed, when it comes to what Gutan has to deliver. Logging in has become commonplace. A team in flux gives a city in flux.

It can be said daily and weekly that Tromsø Idrettslag is what is known in the technical language as a selling club, meaning that it must be expected at all times that the best players will be sold, without necessarily reaching the “everyman”.

Through its success over the past 20 months, TIL has created a climate where expectations have become higher than they have been in just over a decade. We have to go back to Per-Mathias Høgmo’s period, which ended in 2012, before we find something similar.

Meanwhile, have TIL spent most of their time firing coaches, grinding away the commitment between the club and its followers, and not least trying to avoid relegation. Until the summer of two years ago. Since then, TIL has been among Norway’s best teams, and for periods of 2023, close to the best. People have returned to the stands, with a modern supporter culture as a supplement.

Jørgen Vik knew all this when he stepped out of the shadows and into the public eye this winter. So extreme is the difference between being the unknown assistant coach and taking over as manager of the entire store in one of the country’s most high-profile jobs. Agnar Christensen, Bård Flovik and Otto Ulseth know everything about taking that path, and how difficult it can be.

It hasn’t gone quite according to plan for Vik. Three straight losses from the series opener means that we have to look at the record form in a negative sense. We have to go all the way back to 2006, when freshman Ivar Morten Normark led the team, to find something comparable. He led the team to four straight losses, before there were points in the fifth. Normark was fired in July.

But also Viks last predecessor had a difficult time at the start of his elite series career with TIL. After a recipe-wise promotion in 2020, it was completely different tones in the spring and summer of 2021 for Gaute Helstrup.

TIL took one or two points, but the game was not settled, and the annual cries for Steinar Nilsen had long since arrived among some of the “experts” on social media as we approached the end of June. After losing 0-3 against Odd in round nine, the realization came from Helstrup to iTromsø:

– I think we should probably be honest and recognize that this is where we start. We are preparing for it to be a war to get enough points to play elite league football until next year.

There was no improvement until August, a month TIL went into the qualifying position after an almost half-played series and Sakarias Opsahl and Christophe Psyche were brought in.

Let’s fast forward to this day it is obvious that Jørgen Vik will have a long way to go to talk about a relegation battle. In many ways, it will also be a declaration of bankruptcy for a TIL team with completely different ambitions in a year when they will even be playing in Europe.

But if things continue as they are now, the same realization will also force itself in 2024, and again before round nine. There is little point in talking about TIL as a potential top team, if they appear to be a losing team over time. Eight losses in a row, including training matches against elite teams or 1st division teams, mean that clichés such as “alarming” or even “crisis” are drawn out behind the scenes.

TIL has anyway came out so badly in the season, that a significant winning streak is required to get into a comfortable position. Not quite simply because in the next period two games will be played a week, and that does not leave room to train too much on everything that has not been released.

The intensity is a notch too weak, something we also saw this winter. Mobility as well. The two set piece goals conceded in the last two games would not have come so easily with Jostein Gundersen or Niklas Vesterlund in the team. The counterplay from other teams works better and appears more prepared than last year.

The mood up at Alfheim is currently not too affected by how the results have been. Gallows humor in the corridors is nice to have when the losses have come in a row. That’s fine enough, as long as those who manage the store understand that the situation is about to go from awkward to serious.

TIL must of course stand by the decisions they have made both on coaching appointments, player purchases and player sales. Maybe some small adjustments can make the margins go the way they want?

It should happen soon. Because where everything seemed manageable last year, it seems far more insurmountable this year. After all, it’s not so much fun with a relegation battle, even though we’re well aware of it here in the city.