Pretty crucial game today! After months of horrific performances, one after the other, and a total lack of wins, we finally turned things around in terms of performance last week by beating Hertha a whooping 5-0. A change in the tide, or just a fluke? Today, we will go a long way towards finding out. And it is a hugely important game as far as the prospects of our season are concerned. With Dortmund, Bayern and Gladbach all in the cup semis, it seems likely that 7th place this season could be enough to secure a European spot. Who is 7th? Hannover. We are 9th, 5 points behind. If we can get an away win, we will be back within striking distance of the European spots. If we lose, the gap is 8 points, and our chances will be incredibly slim. So we need a result here, of some sort. A draw at the very least. It will be very hard to achieve - Hannover are unbeaten at home so far. But if we can build on last week's performance, there is a chance. The lineup? I assume it will remain unchanged from last week. There is no reason to make a change. Boka and Traore are now back from the African Cup of Nations, but it remains to be seen whether the pair will even be able to make the bench. Molinaro and Delpierre are both still serving their suspension, while Gebhart is still injured. Celozzi, incidentally, has been demoted to training with the reserve side after giving away his tickets to the Bayern cup game to friends. I don't really understand why such a harsh decision, but it looks like the kid's time at VfB is up. Let's get ourselves an auswaertssieg today boys! Come on!
I missed the start of the second half. How did Hannover score? Another set piece? That a defender got it, suggests that's what happened. Great energy and attacking pace for VfB to start the game, at least. They came out fighting. Where is the proper marking on the corner kicks though? Sakai has looked good on the ball to me. Some scary back-passes for us. The most horrific being Kvist's near the end of the first half that almost made it 3-0 right there.
4-0 now. Well, last week was indeed a fluke. So I can happily remain in the fire Labbadia camp. Horrific performance
You didn't play very very bad today, but your defense was horrid, and lost you the game. The fact that you are in between the Bruges matches should somehow put the 2 goals at the end into perspective, I think. I don't think you'll make it close to 7th, you should hope for putting moe distance between you and 16th and start to look at for next season...
Making 7th is not impossible, 8 points gap and the teams in front of us are also not particularly strong. But it is a long shot in any case. The performance yesterday was no good, no good at all. Player Ratings: Sven Ulreich: Kicker Rating: 4.5 (22 played, 2.70 avg.) My Rating: 4.5 Khalid Boulahrouz: KR: 4 (17 played, 3.59 avg.) MR: 4.5 Maza: KR: 3.5 (19 played, 3.53 avg.) MR: 4.5 Georg Niedermeier: KR: 5 (6 played, 4 as starter, 3.88 avg.) MR: 5 Gotoku Sakai: KR: 5 (2 played, 4.00 avg.) MR: 4.5 William Kvist: KR: 4.5 (22 played, 3.16 avg.) MR: 5 Christian Gentner: KR: 4 (17 played, 12 as starter, 3.35 avg) MR: 4.5 Martin Harnik: KR: 4.5 (22 played, 21 as starter, 3.57 avg.) MR: 3 Tamas Hajnal: KR: 4 (21 played, 18 as starter, 3.78 avg.) MR: 5 Shinji Okazaki: KR: 4 (19 played, 14 as starter, 3.88 avg.) MR: 2 ---- for a goal like that one, has to be given Vedad Ibisevic: KR: 5 (14 played (4 for VfB), 11 as starter, 3.73 avg.) MR: 4 SUBS: Cacau: KR: 5 (22 played, 18 as starter, 4.03 avg.) MR: 3.5 Zdravko Kuzmanovic: KR: No Rating (17 played, 13 as starter, 3.50 avg.) MR: No Rating Unused Subs: - Tobias Weis - Arthur Boka - Antonio Ruediger - Raphael Holzhauser - Julian Schieber Yesterday's defensive shambles I think can in large part be attributed to Tasci's absence, I can quickly make that prognosis.
I don't want to crash your hopes, but you'll have to improve vastly if you want to catch Werder, Bayer or us. It is not impossible, but the way you played yesterday it is very unlikely (we'll try to do our part and catch Bayer and Werder and then leave them behind, though ;-) )