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:

Rene Adler

Looks like a pretty cool cat

27 year old Adler is still considered by some to be the best goalie in Germany when healthy. Well, that conversation seems to have switched over to Ter Stegen vs. Neuer for now, but Adler should still be in the upper echelon of goalies worldwide when he steps onto the pitch again. Hamburg don’t have another ‘world class’ player on their squad right now, so I don’t blame them for swooping in on him for a free transfer, even if they are upgrading a position that wasn’t bad at all this year. Seems to be healthy after having one injury after another by the end of his time at Leverkusen.

Artjoms Rudnevs

The man of names in the plural form

24 year old Rudnevs is a Latvian with an impressive goal scoring record at every league he’s played at in his young career (the best of these leagues being the Polish league, though). Across all competitions he scored 25 goals in 33 games last season, and even scored 5 goals in eight Europa league games the year before. He’s neither huge nor small at 6′0″, but is considered to be an all around good goal scorer – good with both feet and also with his head. Also has a nice, left-footed long shot in the video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wq5SYcIi0BQ&feature=related

Rumors continue to be floating around about various other players, but the other news is that because of Manchester City, Juventus and Real Madrid all winning their domestic titles, Hamburg will receive 3.5 million euros as part of the clauses of Kompany, de Jong, Elia and van der Vaart (even though he’s no longer on Madrid). So, there’s some more Geld that Arnesen and Thorsten Fink have to be creative with.

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

It was definitely a somewhat experimental game in that Fink knew that Hamburg were safe from relegation and could afford to take some risks. The result was no different than most of the other games this season, though. The Augsburg goal came when Aogo for some reason was nowhere near playing leftback, leaving the defensive responsibility to the defensively challenged Ghökan Töre, who preceded to get totally faked out on a basic move, leaving the crossing lane wide open, which in turn forced Westermann to step up a bit, which in turn left Hosogai wide open in front of the net to head it in.

HSV woke up slowly in the second half, and had a couple of half chances before the best opportunity of the game found a wide open Petric – right in front of goal, unmarked – off an Aogo free kick. He proceeded to hit it five yards over goal. His form has sunk quickly this season after a strong start, hasn’t it?

Bruma back at CB with Diekmeier was a shaky combo. Westermann was very good, as he has been all season, and Aogo was decent in defense whenever he was actually back to help rather than just playing as a left winger. I have another criticism of Aogo – for all of the crosses he puts in, the majority of them never even find someone’s head. In contrast to Diekmeier, who really is able to pick people out in the offensive zone with his runs down the flank. What’s the point of playing so much through our wing back if he never can pick out people accurately? I guess the point is that we’re not good enough to go through the middle.

Son had his typical moment of blowing past defenders in midfield before reaching the point of shooting or passing at the edge of the box – standing there stupidly for a few moments wondering what the hell he was gonna do – and then stepping backwards and shooting weakly off his back foot. In general, HSV seemed to get into a decent attacking position, and then just stop running and survey options. This slows down attack! When do you see teams ever score lots of goals through slow, plodding movement? You need to keep the tempo up, force the defense into making decisions or rash tackles.

Anyway, we’ll be sure to keep posting here at this HSV blog over the summer, so keep in touch! News pieces, opinion pieces, etc. Leave your thoughts!

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.

Danke Mladen and Jaro

Jarolim and his daughter Ella salute the supportive HSV fans

The other big part of this match was that it was the final home game for both Mladen Petric and David Jarolim – 2 HSV stalwarts. I didn’t know until today that Jarolim was definitely leaving, so this was a bummer. I had read earlier in the year that he wanted to leave to find a club where he could start consistently, but that was before he earned his place back in the starting 11 and HSV started to perform well under Thorsten Fink’s leadership. But if the youth-rebuild is still in full effect, there won’t really be a place for Jarolim next year. I know he hasn’t been the most popular of players for our readers here, but I’ve always liked his feistiness and I think we can agree that Hamburg was a weaker squad this season when he wasn’t in the lineup. If the team was going to struggle to get even 1 goal per game, then they needed a guy like Jarolim to try to keep things tight in the midfield. He did that well today and through most of this difficult season, so I’m glad the team kept him around for some much-needed experience. Danke Jaro – hope you find a new club soon and win many fouls for them!

An emotional moment for Petric as he says goodbye to HSV

It would have been nice for Mladen Petric to get a goal on his last home game for HSV, but at least he looked a little more lively today than his last few starts and had at least a couple shots on target in the scoreless match. I think we’ve seen a drop-off in Petric’s form this year, but he has been on-again, off-again with injuries and is playing on a team with few creative ideas, so it’s tough to expect a lot of goals from him. He has 1 more game to try to get another goal, but he will likely finish as Hamburg’s top scorer this season anyway with 7 goals. He’s also had some great goals in his time with HSV and has been a very important part of the team. It’s sad to see him go and obviously it’s hard for him as well as we could see when he was subbed off today. Any thoughts on where he’ll end up next? I know Wolfsburg has shown interest in him in the past, but they recently announced that Ivica Olic will be playing there next season, so maybe they already have enough Croatian strikers now. But wouldn’t it be cool to see the Petric-Olic connection reunited at Wolfsburg next season? (Not if they scored against Hamburg though). Danke Mladen for all your goals for HSV and good luck!

One last thing to note is that the perennially injured Romeo Castelen will not be returning to the club next year either. This year he finally recovered from injury and made one appearance for the big club before Fink arrived, but was mainly an HSV II player. It’s a shame that he never was able to stay healthy long enough to establish his place in the team, but I’m glad the club didn’t cut bait with him while he was hurt. Best of luck Romeo!

Thanks for reading. I’m sure Ryan will have some thoughts to share about this crazy season and we’d like to hear yours too! Everyone take a gigantic breath of relief, Hamburg will be back in the Bundesliga 1 next season!

Son got on the scoreboard again, which is good, and it was a well taken turn and finish after Jansen had done a lot of the hard work. But he otherwise was doing his whole NEVER PASS game – I specifically remember one time where HSV had a 4 on 3 shortly before the goal where Son had the ball at his feet and there were literally three options for passes that would have released a player into scoring position. Instead he just dribbles into a defender. Even Messi passes the ball there, and he’s a hell of a lot better at dribbling than Son. I tweeted my frustration about this play, and was met with much anger by many South Korean twitter followers. But anyway, he did get a goal.

The FCN goal came out of a bad mistake from Bruma, who had plenty of time and space to go up and get a header, but instead just completely whiffed, leaving Didavi with only Neuhaus to beat. Which he did.

Speaking of Neuhaus, yeah, Drobny is injured. So is Gojko Kacar, who has a broken bone in his leg. As of writing this post, there’s no definitive news on Drobny.

Our midfield looked terrible in this one, especially when in possession. Jarolim and Rincon make for a decent defensive duo, but really look bad when requiring them to look like offensive players. Ilecivic always looked crowded out, though he did pop up occasionally with a good move or run. Jansen had a couple of nice moments and helped cover Aogo well. Berg had some decent build up play but didn’t really look likely to score.

Anyway, we can’t be directly relegated anymore! Woohoo! And it would take Köln winning both of their games and us losing both of our games for us to even end up in the playoff spot, as Köln have such a bad goal difference. Things are looking good on that front – and it should be an interesting summer after that. But we still have a couple of games left in this miserable season, so let’s hope there’s at least some goals and good play in them…

Debate of the week: Son. To me, he’s maddening at times, but clearly very talented, adds pace and is a good finisher. But damn you’d think he’d learn to get rid of the ball when he’s in midfield at least. Thoughts?

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:

Drobny: 6.5 – Would go through spells where he actually didn’t have tons to do in this game, but controlled his area very well, including coming out to snag a few crosses off corners, but was otherwise never really called into action.

Aogo: 6.0 – Was clearly missed against Hoffenheim, and came back in this game with typical energy. Didn’t have so much of an impact, but tied for the team lead in ball contacts with Bruma and passed pretty well. Won the least amount of duels, which isn’t really his thing, and I can never find stats for interceptions, but in general was good and not great in defending.

Westermann – 8.0 – Round of applause for this guy. On a typical game maybe I’d give a 7.5, but stepping up and being the clear leader that HSV needed in this game boosts him. Won everything that came his way, and put in some really focused tackles as no Hanover player could dribble around him. Rarely do I say, “Damn!” about how skillful  a tackle was, but I was saying that a few times in this game about his. Also passed really well out of the back, and could have scored off a header that the magnificent Zieler parried over the bar.

Mancienne – 7.0 – I still am not a fan of how relatively small he is for a CB, but when he is paired with Bruma on that side of defense he looks a whole lot better. Won the most tackles on the team and generally never lost his positioning. Is pacey (even pacier than Westermann, who is pretty quick for a CB) and helps cut out counters that way.

Bruma – 6.5 – Put in an industrious display on the right side, where he really helps out in defense by crunching anything that tries to come his way. This back four (Mancienne for Rajkovic is a toss up to me) is definitely our best defensive squad, even though Diekmeier adds more in offense. Helps control the game.

Ilicevic – 6.0 – Ivo continues to put in games that are ehh I guess that was good enough. There’s not a single stat that jumps out as good or bad. Still a much more effective player from the left where he can cut in and shoot, because he doesn’t really like to cross.

Rincon – 6.0 – Really helped to cut out attacks in midfield as well as help dictate the flow of passing to the forwards, but didn’t do a whole lot else. A typical moment where a better CM would have shot from the outside of the box saw him just gently pass it to the side. From watching Bayern’s game with Kroos and Schweinsteiger, I miss a CM who can rip it from distance. But oh well, we aren’t them.

Jarolim – 6.0 – Looked a little slow at times, but still put in his typical display. The ref was not buying his antics of falling at any sign of a touch, but still managed to pick up a foul here and there. Helped dictate passing well and slow down Hanover’s attacks.

Jansen – 6.5 – Good display from Marcel, who almost scored one early on and was generally involved in most attacks. Still had a terrible passing percentage, which knocks him down a little, but in general had a good game with some creativity.

Berg – 6.0 – Had one nasty shot on target, but otherwise wasn’t terribly threatening. Won some headers off long balls to him and continued to open up space with his vision and creativity, but could go absent in games. His ‘absent’ is much more involved than Petric’s ‘absent’, however.

Son – 7.5 – What a goal! My goodness. His added pace did wonders for Fink’s system – I’ve discussed how the pace of Basel probably benefited Fink’s long ball and wings system before – and many attacks went through him opening up space by burning a defender or two. Sure his shot was a little lucky not to hit someone’s foot by the end of his run, but the run itself from deep in his own corner to right in the middle of his box was absolutely mesmerizing. Did not dwell too long on the ball until the very end of the second half, and had a stinging shot saved well again by Zieler. I want more of this guy.

Subs

No sub came on for long enough to deserve a rating.

Hey – good win! I don’t think I’ve said this in a while, but Hamburg could have won this game 4-0 if not for the heroics of Rob Robert Zieler. Lots of creativity being shown and had the Hanover defense – who are notoriously well organized – guessing wrong all game. Let’s hope that this is the sort of progression we will continue to see under Thorsten, and that the many weeks of sludge were just a blip.

I thought Petric had a nice game, and deserved to get his name on the score sheet. Aogo and Jansen made a pretty lively combo, and Bruma even popped up here and there at RB. Ilicevic wasn’t great nor awful today, and Jarolim had his first ‘old man’ looking game in a while. Robert Tesche was non-existent, though that has something to do with him just looking really generic as a human being. But Leverkusen have a strong midfield, and indeed play a 4-3-3, so our CM’s were going to have a problem and our wings were bound to look lively. Mancienne was bossed around physically by the taller Kiessling, but he put in some decent tackles and tracked him otherwise well. Westermann had some really nice passes in this game, Drobny had some good saves, etc. etc. In other words almost everyone played at least alright, except for our CM’s who I didn’t really think added anything. But that is a personnel problem and we all know it by now.

What I liked from this game was that Fink took away the CM as sweeper role. In this game it was slightly more traditional – our fullbacks didn’t push up quite so far when just sitting in possession, and our two CB’s stayed much closer to the middle of the pitch rather than fanning out to receive passes from the CM. Until the team is super comfortable with this, I say don’t do it. At the same point, I think it’s a much better defensive strategy in general, and perhaps signals that Fink is changing his tactics a little bit with this team.

Chris (the founder of this blog) tweeted me adamantly that he was pleased with this result, seeing as HSV have been so terrible at home this season. A point to me is OK, but we blew a chance after we were leading against a Kusen squad that isn’t exactly tearing up the pitch right now, so I ended the game feeling a little bit disappointed. What are everyone’s thoughts? More meh? Or a positive feeling heading into the English week?

Hoffenheim and Hanover this week. Huge games against decent teams, especially Hanover. If HSV only are able to pick up a point out of the next two games, then we are going to finish the season in terrifying fashion.

BAMF Berg

Anyway, let’s take a look at something I haven’t bothered to do in a while – player ratings!

Drobny – 7.0 – Is occasionally slow off his line to help out his defenders, but had three very good saves throughout the game after his stinker last week.

Diekmeier – 5.5 – Was doing OK in offense and pretty poorly in defense before being taken off due to what is being described as a torn ligament. That’s not good.

Mancienne – 6.0- Good enough game, had his ups and downs throughout. Damn, he’s got some wheels on him for a CB though. Not superb in the air though.

Westermann – 6.0 – Same goes for Heiko. Tough to give defensive ratings in a game where HSV gave up tons of space and some good looks at goal, but kept a clean sheet. Had some good interceptions, but his passing and clearances today were woeful.

Aogo – 5.0 – Attacks constantly came down his side, and didn’t really link up well with Jansen as Marcell chose to go more centrally than usual. Barely won any tackles, but did put in a couple of good crosses, including the one that Berg brought down and assisted Jansen with.

Kacar – 5.5 – Was absolutely imperious in the air, and did well enough to help out in attack. Had 7 passes go awry, though, and ultimately gets knocked down for his rash tackle just outside the box that Kaiserslautern didn’t do enough from, and for his rash tackle that should have been a penalty in the second half.

Jarolim – 6.5 – Held up play delightfully and picked up his fouls as usual. Did very well to win the vast majority of his duals and help out defensively, but again did very little in attack.

Jansen – 7.0 – The majority of the people that read this blog (and write it) wanted Marcell out this week in favor of Töre, but alas Marcell has a very good match and scores the all important goal. He’s always going to be a good shooter and tackler – both of which he did today – but today also helped out with passing and link up play. Attempted some nice through balls here and there that just didn’t quite work out, but was full of ideas.

Ilicevic – 5.5 – Was basically unhelpful in attack (except for firing off the bar), and seems to lack confidence on the right side. Surprisingly was a bit of a saving grace multiple times in defense, though! Won a ton of tackles, and helped out both Diekmeier and Sala at RB, who were both having trouble defending.

Berg – 6.5 – The more I watch him, the more I like him. Had some really clever and effective passing, including his split second decision to pass across goal off of Aogo’s cross rather than go for goal himself, and also a sneaky pass into the box that set up Ilicevic hitting the bar. Seems to have a bit more pace to him than I thought, and with some better weighted through balls he would have been really causing a ruckus. Looks like a creative and intelligent player to me.

Petric – 5.0 – Had one dangerous shot on goal, but even that was really straight at the keeper. Otherwise was completely absent, and broke up the offense with some awful passes.

SUBS

Sala – 5.0 – Was surprisingly brought on to play RB instead of Rajkovic and sliding over Mancienne, and didn’t really do all that great. He’s an alright defender, but looked overrun at times and lost as many tackles as he won. Ehh to him playing RB.

Son – 5.5 – Came on and dwelled on the ball too long as he does EVERY TIME HE PLAYS. I don’t understand why people can’t get that through to him. Even several announcers have mentioned that about him, so apparently it’s known internationally at this point that the dude just takes way too long to make a decision.

At home next weekend to crisis stricken Leverkusen, who might be firing their coach Robin Dutt. Not a bad match up, as they don’t look too good right about now.

Nur der HSV!

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).

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.

Fink took over just before Wolfsburg, a team almost equally as mediocre this season but with a much more experienced squad. This game included that awful bit of defending (individual  error) by Aogo in the first minutes of the game that led to Wolfsburg’s goal, so it’s tough to get too worked up about it. But, let’s continue. Next was a disappointing draw at home against Kaiserslautern – if people will remember this game, there was plenty of space on the counter that the young Lautern attacks just couldn’t finish most of the time. Then there was a valiant effort away at Leverkusen that ended in a tie, a few reasonable matches in a row and then a dip in form once we played Mainz, Augsburg and Dortmund. But going into every single game is not the point – the point is to look at the results and then digest them.

Hamburg play with many men forward – both fullbacks play more like wingbacks under Fink, getting very far forward in attack and positioning themselves up the pitch even when the ball is in HSV’s own half. This leads to a lot of ball possession deep in the opponent’s halves on the wings, which isn’t a bad thing, so long as you can convert that possession into possession in the center of the pitch (something Töre is fantastic at). This also leads to a lot of possession and high passing numbers. Notice how a lot of the games we end up losing, we end up out passing and out possessing the other team? Why do we still give up three or four goals against the good teams?

Well, the thing that I’m concerned about on a whole is the fact that I think HSV gives up SO much space – and I mean against just about any team – on counters. We position our fullbacks so high that they struggle to get back on defense (Diekmeier is somewhat OK at this just cus’ he’s so fast), leaving our CBs and usually Rincon to deal with the issue. The other problem is that our CB’s position themselves almost to where fullbacks would normally position themselves, leading to big open valleys in the center of the pitch if one of our midfielders loses the ball via an errant pass or something. At its most basic level (and throwing out all of the variables that happen with other members of the opposing (Red Ball) teams), it looks a little something like this:

Now, this is obviously crude and simplistic, but the point is to show that on counters we often find ourselves in 2 on 3’s without the aid of our most athletic defensive players, the fullbacks. If the attacking team waits too long for reinforcements (Bayern), then we usually are able to drop back and regroup. If the team is comfortable in taking a couple of risks and moving the play very quickly (Stuttgart, even Kaiserslautern), then we end up being put under tons of pressure in the final third of our own pitch. If the team possesses good enough people to finish those chances (Stuttgart, Schalke) then we end up looking really bad, even though we had played fairly well up until that point.

I never really watched Fink’s Basel team other than their games against the atrocity that was Manchester United, so I can’t completely say that his Basel team was put under similar pressure during games. Perhaps it’s simply a case of our Hamburg team not executing his tactics well right now. But keep in mind that the teams that HSV have not given big goal tallies to are the teams with poor finishers on them – which the Swiss league doesn’t have in great form (or otherwise, those people are on Basel!).

The other thing that Fink enjoyed having at Basel is on the offensive side. Notice how we throw people forward, yet we’ve never scored more than two goals in a game under Fink? I think that Fink’s system was greatly helped by the fact that he had two super quick wingers in Xhaka and Shaquiri, with a front man in Frei who could put away the chances when needed. That’s not to say Frei is any better than Petric, but in comparison to the rest of the Swiss League, Frei is their Mario Gomez. In other words, he might want to adapt his tactics to the better Bundesliga sides as well as his personnel. As you can see here from the great website whoscored.com, what I’m saying is generally already accepted by statisticians (even two of our ’strengths’ are pushing it):

Those are my two cents. Leave your own thoughts as to why this is happening, as well as if anyone has a better grasp of how Basel looked when Fink was at the helm.

Have faith, as the rest of our schedule (besides Leverkusen and Hannover, neither of whom are so terribly scary to me) is pretty easy and we should still be confident of not going into the relegation zone.

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.The real things to worry about are twofold: Our porous home record, and Paolo Guerrero. Most people have considered Paolo’s red card tackle on Sven Ulreich the “foul of the season”. Tough to argue (at least in the Bundesliga). Basically just Paolo taking out his always-ready-to-blow-anyway frustrations out in a particularly frustrating match. Personal opinion time: I’ve always thoroughly disliked Guerrero, though have been able to put up with him this season because he’s been good enough form – he helps hold up the play, occasionally plays a nice little ball to someone, and even occasionally scores himself. But that’s still not saying that much about the guy, as for a forward he’s got mediocre pace, an average at best shot and is mediocre in the air. His whole game is about grinding against defenders and being a wily bastard, which works for him, but doesn’t leave him with much of a ceiling. This season has basically gone down the tubes – we’re eleven points out of Europe, and only five points above relegation. With the way our schedule ends, I’m not particularly concerned about the latter, so I’m ready to give Arslan and / or Son a few starts at striker over the next two months. Why not? Son has sucked the whole season, but maybe he’ll start to grow given some starts. Maybe.

And now begins the not so scary part of the season

Anyway, Guerrero is looking at a 6 game suspension, and is facing being sold for a modest amount over the summer. Replacements that have been mentioned include Leverkusen’s Derdiyok (who I think has tons of talent), and maybe even Bayern’s Nils Pederson (who I’ve always seen more as just a straight up finisher than a guy that can create his own goals…). Maximilian Beister will also hopefully be back next season. But… that’s next season.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90aGAc84qJA – Guerrero’s foul, for those who haven’t seen it.

For now Thorsten Fink has something else worrying that he must think about – why the hell do Hamburg suck so much at home? In the table just for home games, Hamburg are DEAD LAST. Behind Augsburg, Freiburg, etc. Meanwhile, they’d be in the Europa League (6th) if they played all their games away. Hamburg’s stadium is huge and beautiful, with loud and devoted fans. Should be good, right?

The problem may lie in the fact that Fink loves ball possession to the point of being timid in attack, and teams that are playing at Hamburg come in with the idea that they’ll resort to counter. They patiently sit back and don’t mind Hamburg switching the ball around on their high line of essentially three defenders. Then when Hamburg cross the ball into the box and lose possession, the away teams find themselves in acres of space as long as they can avoid the midfield pressing. When Hamburg play away, they benefit from the other teams pushing up some players in the attempt to get possession for themselves, which helps HSV create space in attack. Sort of like what’s happening to Bayern Munich right now – they want to have all the possession and all the space in attack, but those two things don’t really go together perfectly.

Schalke next weekend, who we have a decent record against, but who are much better than HSV and great at home. After that, Freiburg and Leverkusen.