HSV 2011/2012: We aren't that good

Manchester City are reportedly set to make their interest in Xherdan Shaqiri official by lodging a €12m bid for the winger in January.

Hamburg supposedly offered 7m. We shall see which rumor is true in January.

I have a hard time believing City will go after Shaqiri. I've heard they're interested in a million wigners and they are pretty much set up top. Aguero, Ballotelli, Johnson, Silva, Dzeko, etc. They're reportedly interesting in Reus as well. I'm hoping HSV ponies up some cash and he comes because of Fink.

Great to see Fink grab his first win. Our boys are really coming together. They are really looking like a cohesive unit, finally. We are still lacking talent to compete with the big boys, but that is going to take some time. Its nice to watch some aesthetically pleasing footy.

We beat our friends from Scotland today. I am not a big fan of the "friendship" between the two clubs. I personally have no interest in befriending a club filled with as much bigotry, hate, and violence as Rangers. I'm glad we beat them.

I just want this Westermann gone, really cant stand him!

A good win and all the up to 11th. Hamburg starting to come together.

Are you actually watching the games or just reading the news from early in the season. His performance over the last few games has been quite stable, this includes yesterday. There is a wide consensus in the media today (spox, kicker, matz ab, bild as well as comments to those articles) that the best players on the team yesterday were Drobny, Guerrerro, Westermann and Rincon. He's doing a good job despite still being booed by HSV fans all the time. Give the man some credit.
BTW: Spox.com even placed him in the Bundesliga team of the week:
http://www.spox.com/de/sport/fussba...ery-lukas-podolski-dante-jaroslav-drobny.html

Yesterday was actually their worst game under Fink (he said so himself), but they were effective and kept three points at home. 11th is great for now.

^This.

Another good showing from Westermann on the weekend. He was even invited to Sportstudio on Saturday night. That's still an honor only awarded to players who are performing.

Apart from that Drobny was the spox.com goalie of the week for the fourth time in a row (although this may be the first time it was not entirely deserved, because there were no really difficult-to-catch shots on his goal on Saturday).
I haven't made up my mind about HSV interest in Adler. It's true that if you can get a guy like this for decent money you have to take the chance. At the same time this rivalry will certainly have an impact on Drobny's performance again and who knows if Adler will ever find his top form again.

You said it best, though. "...if you can get a guy like this for decent money you have to take the chance." True competitors welcome competition. I don't know how much you follow college football but Oregon and USC have practices with so much competition that many players consider the practices to be more challenging than the games. Players should relish competition.

Westermann has definitely been playing well as of late, but his lack of form over the past year has not allowed me to trust him, yet. He will have to continue this form for a long longer for me to start trusting him.

i dont think i will ever trust him regardless what he does for us.
didn't like him, when he was at schalke and i dont want him here nor in the national team.
He is error prone and its just his attitude that irks me about him. And being called for an interview in the Sportstudio doesn't mean anything in his regards, cause he is considered to be a national player in a traditional club, which gets you invited more likely.

Besides, HSV is slowly and finally recovering. Had my doubts about fink and there are still some, but he might be the right coach for us.
So lets hope we can solidify our spot in midfield and with a bit of luck by the end of the season we might knock on the door upstairs (typical hsv fan hope, despite whats happend hehe)

Players HSV is seriously targeting for the Winter Transfer window:

Xherdan Shaqiri
Danijel Pranjic
Rene Adler
Jano Ananidze
Granit Xhaka
Gai Assulin
Mevlut Erding
Paul Pogba

Players who could be sold:
Dennis Aogo

What I don't understand is when you people have the transfer budget amongst the top 20 clubs in Europe, why do you hold back the funds just for the sake of holding it? If a sound budget planning is placed in, you people have a chance of consistently finishing in the top 4 and earning a spot in the UCL.. and maybe even reaching the last 16..

@ Lestard: I get what you're saying and despite everything I said I am still wary of Westermann myself. I think he has a propensity to making errors at the worst of times and thus his errors often stick out and do injustice to his overall performance. I just think he should be credited for his improving form and also, something that is not mentioned so often, for being indestrubtible. The guy has not missed a match since he started for HSV in the summer of last year:
http://www.mopo.de/hsv/kapitaen-hat...rmann--der-unkaputtbare,5067038,11292404.html

@völler's mustache: True, if Drobny is really of such a frail mindset, then that is also something that should be counted against him. He will have to work with competition again sooner or later anyway. It would not do the club well to pass up a huge chance just to keep Drobny comfortable.
Do you have any sources for your players of interest other than Transfermarkt.de? If I am informed correctly, then Shaquiri is now officially being deemed out of reach for HSV (Xhaka however is not) and the whole Pogba thing was a fluke from the start, which is why it was retracted so quickly. You would make me very happy by proving me wrong here.

@shaman: I have often wondered about the HSV financial situation myself. They have consistently been ranked among the top 15 revenue clubs in the world in the Deloitte money league, they have made a reasonable amount of money from player sales over the years (Kompany, de Jong and others) and never spent more than 10 million on a single player. Why are they out of money?
The fact is that little is known about HSV finances. What's known is this: Hoffmann really did a lot for them in terms of revenue (see above). They haven't recorded a loss at the end of the year since 2003 until now (about five million in the red). They are and will be paying a lot for the stadium until 2016 and they are (like everyone else) still paying a lot for previous transfer fee installments (16 - 17 million per year, but next year it will be less). Nobody really knows if HSV is debt free and what sort of other liabilities there are, but there does not seem to be any money.
The fact is that over the summer the fees achieved from player sales where sunk into the purchases for the Chelsea gang. After that they had no money left to spend. Then, they sold Elia last minute for about 9 million and they immediately respent about four of those on Ilicevic and another one on Fink. That leaves them with about four million to spend, plus whatever Kühne is willing to kick in, when he participates in special transfers.
Nobody knows why with all that revenue, they don't have more money to spend. But it will apparently get much better over the next few years.
In terms of purchasing power I would rank (my opinion only) HSV 6th in the Bundesliga together with Bremen (they have less money but have been more fortunate with player developments and thus made a lot in transfer fees until last year, Diego, Özil etc.). They are behind Bayern (obvious), Leverkusen and Wolfsburg (who sugardaddy their clubs so they can keep their spending level about the same no matter where they end up during a given season), Dortmund (in debt somewhere between 40 and 50 million, haven't spent much over the last years, revenue equal or less than HSV but have the potential to generate huge amounts in transfer fees over the next few years, they just announced plans to sign a big international star next summer so that sounds like they will be selling Götze) and then there's Schalke, which should have less money to spend than HSV and is paying lots of interest on a huge debt (a reported approx. 250 million), but they seem to have a different attitude to spending altogether.

So in response to your post: They are not sitting on money they can spend (or at least only very little) and people like van der Vaart, Shaquiri and Pogba simply appear to be out of reach. Despite being likely to ask for a huge salary, Adler would be possible, because there is no transfer fee involved.

Friendly #1 vs SC Lokeren in Marbella, Spain on Friday:

Hamburger SV 1 Hz: Mickel - Diekmeier, Bruma, Rajkovic, Sternberg - Jarolim - Lam, Sala, Ilicevic - Petric, Son

Second Half: Neuhaus - Bergmann, Mancienne, Westermann, Aogo - Tesche, Rincon - Tore (75.Lam), Ingreso, Jansen - Guerrero

Goals: 1-0 Petric (40), 2-0 Petric (42), 3-0 Jansen (52), 3-1 Harbaoui (77)

Tore damaged knee cartilage and returned to Hamburg.


Friendly #2 vs Club Brugge on Sunday:


Hamburger SV : Drobny - Diekmeier, Bruma (46.Rajkovic), Westermann, Aogo (76.Sternberg) - Ilicevic (46.Son), Skjelbred (46.Tesche), Jarolim (46.Rincón), Jansen (38.Lam/68 . Arslan) - Petric (62.Sala), Guerrero (90.Bergmann)

Goals: 0-1 Vleminchx, 1-1 Petric (48), 2-1 Sala (84th)

Yellow card: Jarolim

Hi, I have one request please. Few days ago HSV Sporting Director Frank Arnesen gave an interview in Hamburg Abendblatt(dated 7th January), which was on subscription basis. Here is the link: http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?hl=en&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhamburg%2Babendblatt%26hl%3Den%26prmd%3Dimvns&rurl=translate.google.co.in&sl=de&twu=1&u=http://www.abendblatt.de/sport/fussball/hsv/article2150422/Ich-musste-lernen-Komplimente-zu-machen.html&usg=ALkJrhjpAEjWsN6fWhpvvMo_avRYnfeUrQ

If anyone had read it through subscription, one request, can you please copy & paste the main interview on here, in German/translated English. Thanks in advance, cheers.

New HSV Trikot

Sorry.....breaking all the rules here and being selfish with a random question! My beloved Brazil are playing Denmark in Hamburg's stadium in May. Who would sell the tickets do you think? I know Eventim.de do the tickets for German national team games.

OK, now I'm really starting to worry about my club. We can't even beat Bayern anymore.

Great game on Saturday.

I was so pissed on Saturday. Granted, I should be happy with the defensive performance and grabbing a point from Bayern, but I was furious at the goal that tied the match.

And now Bayern is gonna sign Shaqiri, ARGH!

Gents............any idea when the tickets for the big Brazil-Denmark game at your stadium go on sale (I know this thread is the wrong place for this kind of message, but you Germans are such kind creatures.......)

No idea. Sorry.

Wow, we beat Cologne. Yesterday there were articles on Spiegel-Online (http://www.spiegel.de/sport/fussball/0,1518,814871,00.html) as well as several sports sites (goal.com german section; sport1.de) were there was talk about HSV fans already getting their hopes up again to be playing internationally next year and how HSV fans are always completely unrealistic about the outlook of their club.

I think it's time to change the title of this thread from "We aren't that good" to "We're OK". HSV is doing ok. If you were to take a league table right now that eclipses the games before Fink took over, you would see that Hamburg rides fifth place. Out of the last twelve games in the Bundesliga they have still only lost a single one (yes I know, very they lost very badly). Right now it is quite likely that seventh place will be enough for Europa play, provided that Fürth doesn't make it to the Pokal final (i.e. loses to Dortmund) and provided that neither of the eventual two finalists drops below sixth in the Bundesliga.

And right now Hamburg is five points away from seventh and sixth place in the Bundesliga and the only one out of all the contenders for those spots who has already played against Bayern and Dortmund. I say that's a pretty good outlook.

Here's how I see the competition: The top four teams are definitely gone, especially Gladbach has shown that they were able to keep their momentum over the winter and a significant drop in form before summer doesn't seem likely. After Schalke there is an eight point gap in the table and that gap won't be closed anytime soon.
Then there are Werder and Leverkusen. They haven't really impressed over the last little bit, but I believe they will be able to retain the spots they have right now and I see them stronger than the midfield below them, although there is no gap to the teams that come after them.

I think the rest of the season will see a big fight for spot number seven and the chance of international play in the midfield. The main competitors will be Hannover, Stuttgart, Wolfsburg and HSV. Hannover has a four point lead (five on Stuttgart and Hamburg) and they have been fairly consistent. Wolfsburg and HSV have both become stronger over the last little while and I think those two may be the strongest contenders for spot number seven. Stuttgart has not had a great run and it will be interesting to see whether Labbadia can finally overcome his nine-month curse, but on Saturday they proved that they still have a lot of fight in them.

I think Hoffenheim are in for some tough times and I'm not sure Babbel will be able to help them a lot. Cologne doesn't look like a real contender either, I don't see them or any of the other teams below them breaking into the top ten again. I think we will start to see a gap between spot ten and eleven after the next few games.

So yes, the title race will remain interesting, as will the fight at the end of the table, but the competition for spot number seven will be very interesting, too. Here's to hope that HSV will come out the winner and the Greuther don't ruin it all (although I must say it feels like they have taken spot number four in the second league for the last five years in a row and they surely deserve promotion this year).