Matchday 5 - Hannover @ Home (R)

After the results of these last weeks, we have seen a promising start to the season quickly evaporate with two bitter 1-0 losses.

A real shame, but we can only look forwards and try to get ourselves back to winning ways. After a two week break, today will be a chance to do just that.

Hannover are a solid side - they showed this last season, and have shown so this season with some strong performances so far, not least the elimination of Sevilla.

so: this definitely will not be easy.

However, we desperately need a win here if we are going to start moving up. If we lose, we could find ourselves far down the wrong end of the table again, soon enough.

I was not disappointed with our play in the first 4 games, I think overall we were never really the worst side in any of the matches. So lets get 3 points.


On the squad:
- Rumors that Gentner could take over Hajnal's AM starting position after the latter's disappointing start to the season.
- Boulahrouz is back from suspension and, I believe, will be back as a starter at RB instead of Celozzi.
- Gebhart should be in the match squad and will hopefully finally make his comeback. But I don't expect him to start, although hopefully we see him in the second half.
- Okazaki is likely to start at the left wing again.

My predicted lineup:
------------------Ulreich
Boulahrouz---Maza---Tasci-------Molinaro
-----------Kuzmanovic--Kvist
Harnik-------Gentner/Hajnal-------Okazaki
--------------------Cacau

If I could pick between Gentner and Hajnal? Personally, I would choose Hajnal today.

 

Bundesliga.de has Hajnal and Gentner both starting, Gentner on the left wing. In that case, we would have the exact same lineup as matchday 1, 2 and 3.

 

Surprised more people didn't write on this one, was a good win!

I was in the stadium and was a ton of fun.

Not quite as easy as the 3-0 scoreline suggests, but it was a great result and puts us back to winning ways. The boys were under pressure after two losses in a row, and responded well.

Will write more later.

 

Player Ratings:

Sven Ulreich: KR: 2.5 (5 games played, 2.90 avg.)
MR: 2

Khalid Boulahrouz: KR: 3.5 (4 games played, 3.63 avg.)
MR: 4

Serdar Tasci: KR: 2 (5 games played, 2.70 avg.)
MR: 2

Maza: KR: 3 (5 games played, 3.40 avg.)
MR: 3

Cristiano Molinaro: KR: 4 (5 games played, 3.70 avg.)
MR: 3

William Kvist: KR: 2.5 (5 games played, 2.40 avg.)
MR: 3.5

Zdravko Kuzmanovic: KR: 2 (5 games played, 3.10 avg.)
MR: 2

Martin Harnik: KR: 3 (5 games played, 3.80 avg.)
MR: 3

Christian Gentner: KR: 4 (5 games played, 4 as starter, 3.38 avg.)
MR: 4.5

Shinji Okazaki: KR: 2.5 (4 games played, 2 as starter, 3.33 avg.)
MR: 2

Cacau: KR: 3 (5 games played, 3.20 avg.)
MR: 3.5

SUBS:

Tamas Hajnal: KR: No Rating (5 games played, 4 as starter, 4.25 avg.)
MR: 2.5

Timo Gebhart: KR: NR (1 game played, 0 as starter, no avg rating)
MR: NR

Pavel Pogrebnyak: KR: NR (5 games played, 0 as starter, 4.00 avg.)
MR: NR

Unused Subs:
- Marc Ziegler
- Patrick Bauer
- Stefano Celozzi
- Ibrahima Traore

 

Okazaki got lucky on his goal, fumbled the shot but got to take a second strike, while Tasci's went in off his calf or something, haha. Bit of luck there!

Kuzmanovic's on the other hand was a great great shot