Hamburger SV
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So, HSV weren’t relegated. But they still finished 15th, with (as Mark pointed out) their lowest total number of points and lowest finish in the table in their history. This all began because their veteran, highly paid teams of the past couple of seasons hadn’t produced the finishes that Hamburg wanted – and with the successes of youthful teams like Dortmund popping up, HSV decided to go all in on a youth movement. Not a bad idea, though the quality of the squad ended up being worse than we had thought.
The drop in talent from Ze Roberto to Tomas Rincon or Robert Tesche was felt. Joris Mathijsen was way better than anyone we partnered Westermann with. Petric and Guerrero both had pedestrian seasons. Frank Arnesen took a gamble with a bunch of the players that he had scouted at Chelsea, and ultimately lost in that he figured they could bloom by starting in the Bundesliga.
So, going into next season, there seems to be a change of heart. The goal is not only to bring in young players who are super cheap but also super inexperienced – the goal seems to be to bring in players who can help immediately. Arnesen has stated that he wants to overhaul the squad into a top-8 finish. That’s nice, but the top eight of the Bundesliga have quality all over the pitch, which will force HSV into making a lot of bigger signings than just Michael Mancienne no. 2.
So far this has culminated in Rene Adler and Artjom Rudnevs. Let’s look at them a little more:
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I’ll Miss the Season, but… I’m Tired of Watching Games Like This
What was the worst season for Hamburg in recent years has finally come to end after yet another poor performance against Augbsurg results in a 1-0 loss. The attack in the first half looked completely impotent, with the midfield looking equally non-existant as Robert Tesche and Per Skjelbred looked to not be the pairing of the future. It was especially disappointing for Skjelbred, who I (and a sizable amount of others) thought deserved a shot to start a game in order to inject creativity into offense. Instead, he ran around without much positioning and added even less than the ever ball secure Jarolim would have.
Thanks for the goals and your 81 FIFA video game rating buddy
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Guerrero thanks a higher power for warding off relegation
Well they’ve done it. It wasn’t flashly, but HSV put in a workman-like performance in a 0-0 draw with Mainz to grab a crucial point and prevent relegation. It was not a very exciting match let me tell you, but in the end I think everyone is happy. Even if they lost today everything would have been fine because the only relegation candidate left that could catch them was Köln, who ended up losing 4-1 to Freiburg today anyway. But the positive performance was nicer for the home fans in Hamburg, and really was symbolic of the season. Hamburg played just well enough to get a point, and all season they played just well enough to not get relegated. But enough with the criticism – we can just be happy that HSV got through the season unscathed.
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That was the biggest news from this game, as it was otherwise 90% dull as bones. Two teams that are scrapping out the rest of the season with young players that aren’t really that great yet. Hamburg may have been slightly better at times, but a couple of wide open chances presented themselves to Nürnberg, so a draw is a fair result.
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(So far)
Hamburg played very well and Heung-Min Son scored a terrific goal to earn three points at the Imtech Arena this weekend. Hanover are a good squad who went pretty far in the Europa League, so playing well and beating them is a real shot in the arm – not just because it moves HSV 5 points clear of the relegation playoff spot – but also because it will hopefully inject the players with some confidence that will see them play well the rest of the season.
It’s pretty amazing what a win can do when your in a relegation battle, as after the embarrassing midweek lost to Hoffenheim (that I couldn’t watch then and don’t really want to) it looked like Hamburg were on the brink of sliding into the three dreaded spots at the bottom. But after a Rhein Derby that saw Köln kicked around easily by a good but not that offensively powerful Mönchengladbach side, I’d say that HSV’s chances of avoiding the playoff spot are pretty good, if for no other reason than I can’t imagine Köln getting five points out of their games against Stuttgart, Freiburg (away) and Bayern. Meanwhile, we have Nürnberg, Mainz and Augsburg to finish the season. Getting any results out of two of those three games is very reasonable…
This was pretty cool.
Anyway, let’s talk about the game! How about that defense? How about that offense? Let’s take a look:
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Hamburg earned a hard fought but still generally uninspiring point against Leverkusen today at the Imtech Arena. A handled ball in the box by Kusen’s Castro lead to Mladen Petric’s penalty spot goal, while Andre Schürrle nodded home the equalizer after a corner had been cleared off the line, only to rebound back off of Westermann’s head. I again thought that we lacked any creativity outside of Berg on a couple of occasions and maybe Töre in his first couple of minutes on the pitch (before changing into a turnover machine), but we did look a lot more compact, so there’s that.
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It may not have been the greatest game of all time (when was the last time HSV played a game where you really went, “Wow, that was some awesome play!”?) but Thorsten Fink’s men did come out with all three points from Kaiserslautern and leaped out of the relegation zone. Marcell Jansen popped up with a nice finish after Marcus Berg had played a ball across the box. Both players showed some good stuff today, even if the Croatian part of our team was silent once again. FCK deserved to have a penalty called when Gojko Kacar brought down one of their attackers quite clearly, but the FCK goalkeeper also probably deserved a red for – for some unbeknownst reason – went out of his way to shoulder charge Petric to the ground. Nobody seemed to see how blatant that was, but I’ll be interested to see if there are any comments about that moment. I was shocked when it happened, personally.
BAMF Berg
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What more can I say? My post from two weeks ago held up after last week’s demoralizing loss, and holds up to the 2-1 away loss to Wolfsburg too. The defense wasn’t as awful as it has been, but an Aogo dispossession led to one goal, and Drobny getting beaten on his near post off of Schaefer’s free kick was enough to see off a largely not inventive Hamburg.
Positives: Mancienne played well, after looking outclassed for most of his other appearances this season. Tackled well, distributed well, etc. Also, Marcus Berg had one of the nicest finishes of Hamburg’s awful season with his beautiful lob over the goalie. I liked what I saw from him generally, and think that he should get a few starts down the road to see if he can develop into a consistent striker. Ilicevic had a moment or two where he looked tricky, but was otherwise silent (22 touches of the ball = terrible).
Negatives: Firstly, the goals. HSV’s defense (despite sporting some pretty decent players in our back four) has been absolutely awful this year, and this was added onto today by Aogo being careless and therefore allowing Wolfsburg to take all day to set up a cross to the sneaky Mandzukic and one of only a few Drobny mistakes this season. Drobny in general wasn’t great today, and was a little slow to come off his line. Rene Adler is looking better after this game.
Petric was largely silent again today, and for a player of his skill needs to be more involved (though he had the most touches on the ball of any of our attacking players with 34, sadly). Jansen hasn’t been very good since his little peak in form during the middle of the season, and looks to have lost a couple steps of pace since a few years ago (7 for 14 in passing, oy). To me he plays kind of like a striker who happens to be a decent tracking back defender, therefore he plays in midfield. But otherwise he generally doesn’t get involved with quick decision making buildup play or beating a player one on one. He’s a good finisher, but in our two striker formation I feel it hurts to have three players who play like that.
One of the most annoying developments under Fink (which Mark has mentioned a few times) is players looking like they might take a risk when we are on a fast break, only to think twice about it and then just knock it back up safely to our defenders. We never get a decent shot on counters because of this. This happened quite noticeably with Ilicevic a couple of times.
Personally, I think a player with more pace is needed in our attack with the way Fink plays – Beister is quite quick, so it’s good that he’s coming. But I sure do wish we hadn’t sold Jonathon Pitroipa for 2M last year, even if he wasn’t the best shooter or passer.
Next weekend is a massive battle against bottom dwellers Kaiserslautern (who have a new coach). It’s an away match (which is good I guess) but is at a notoriously loud and raucous stadium (which is bad).
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Huub’s Heebie Jeebies
Now, I was super busy yesterday and was only able to catch glimpses of the game (every time I would manage to check Schalke had scored another goal) but after reviewing the highlights it seems to be part of a bigger trend under Fink. A worrying trend that combines an overaggressive tactical display of positioning mixed with poor individual errors from a young and inexperienced team. Let’s take a closer look, beginning with our results under the former Basel man.
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Friggin Paolo
So, here we are again – after a month or two of slowly beginning to feel good about Hamburg (and even sneaking briefly into contention for a Europa League spot), tying Bayern Munich and Gladbach, we get absolutely shallackled by former coach Bruno Labbadia and his Stuttgart team. To be honest, I didn’t feel super great about this one coming into the game, simply because Stuttgart have been in such ridiculous form since the second half kicked off. They’re a pretty solid team that can at times look good enough to finish in the top 7. Top to bottom they feature some strong players, and it’s no knock on this very young HSV squad to lose to that team.
"Paolo asks the ref what color his shorts are"
But to get absolutely embarrassed at home – 4-0 – is something that we all should find unacceptable. Rajkovic, who is an absolute beast in the air and a fantastic tackler when given some support, cannot for his life defend one on one against a strong attacker. We’ve seen him before (Marco Marin) fail to tackle someone one on one, and in this game we saw it twice – both were penalties. The first one was kind of stupid to me in that the ball was in the air and the little Stuttgarter just kinda ran into Rajkovic, but the second was an easy nutmeg on the big Serbian who needs to be able to react to something like that. We tried to control the run of play (as we have been able to generally) but couldn’t really, given that Stuttgart have quick and effective midfielders/forwards. In attack we basically had a couple of half chances here and there. Petric looks super slow, even if he still has a fantastic left boot. But this game is beyond trying to analyze – to me, some of it can also be attributed to a Stuttgart side on excellent form and our team still slowly finding it’s feet. Read the rest of this entry »
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