Is this the real life? Is it just fantasy? - The Reds continue their unbeaten run

Hello everyone from the water between two countries,

on a sunny Saturday like this it is a pleasure to think back to the heated affair on Thursday that brought us the biggest European success in club history, getting to the last 16 of a European tournament. And it was not by accident, but by design and well-deserved. Also, given the fact that we have so little experience, the fact that we already can take revenge in the next round v Liege is pretty amazing.

Given the 1^st leg result it was clear that Brugge would come all guns blazing at us in the first 20 minutes. And at first, we shook and looked like we'd never get a grip on the match, but slowly we managed to. The goal in the 21^st minute was simple, but so effective, necessary and in its way a beauty. Chahed completely mistimed a ball to Schlaudraff, it ran through and Moa did well to get it first, laid it off to Schmiedebach, who saw Stindl all on his own on the right wing. His cross was marvelous and Mame Diouf only had to control and put it in. 1-0 away, 3-1 on aggregate, well done, breathe easy.

But the concentration? Still very high, and it was needed. Brugge came close on numerous occasions and the amount of last-ditch tackles and saves was crazy. RRZ was a rock in goal, keeping everything out of his goal and had to look for other obstacles as well; like when Akpala pushed Eggimann in the way of the onrushing RRZ to take out two at once.

After half-time, the onslaught continued but there were more opportunities to score the second and put the tie to bed. But Diouf and others wasted a few chances so that the nail-biting continued till the final minute.

When the quite good Scottish ref Callum blew for full-time, the cheers were immense. Throughout the match, our less than 2,000 fans had the upper hand on the rest of the stadium, and when we were through, there was only one team around. Mirko Slomka was quick to give all the praise back to his team, not without withholding them some alcohol, because that would be contrary to the regeneration process for Sunday.

So, on Sunday we face the toughest game of 2012 yet, by playing in Dortmund. At home we got quite a lucky win against them, but both sides are quite different from that match in September. Dortmund just stopped losing in the league as a result, putting together an impressive run without always playing like a year ago. We, on the other hand, improved our away form a little bit and are unbeaten in all competitions in 11 games, and 9 in the league if I am not mistaken. Both of us are unbeaten in 2012 and only a draw could keep that up.

After Thursday, I am actually happy with a draw. The guys might be knackered from running on that piece of mud, putting an incredible shift in. Dortmund on the other hand is without some key players and are clearly warned by our last results. I doubt this is going to be such a high-scoring affair as it has been the last years in Dortmund, where we always conceded 4.

The ideal scenario would be a clean sheet, thereby securing a draw. As we haven't done that this often in the season, I guess we'll concede at least once, so I want us to score at least once. In contrast to last season and the Hinrunde, we have a new striker who adds more danger to our attacking game and connects well with the rest.

The rest of the squad should be quite similar to the one in Brugge, I expect Cherundolo back instead of Chahed and Haggui and Schulz might have a word or two to say for one of the defensive spots, but this is tough to predict. I'll be surprised how the line-up will look like, and then we can continue our pressure on Leverkusen and Bremen. One of them might slip today (v Köln or Nürnberg), but if not, a win would be perfect to stay in touch. I'm happy that the gap to the 8^th spot is quite big, so that there is not much pressure from the bottom and dropping points against the champions is not the end of the world.

Let's see, how we do, here's to at least a point for us in Dortmund.

Vorwärts Hannover!

In Bruges

Moa wants to score again

Welcome to the post with the most obvious title ever,

tomorrow is an important game for us, and the whole team knows about it. The team arrived In Bruges today after a shaky landing due to some turbulences, but those only in terms of weather. Our team is one big group, no disturbances, no fights, no small groups, just happiness.

And we will need that tomorrow evening in the Jan-Breydel-Stadion that has apparently a worse pitch than the one in Basel tonight. Slomka and Schlaudraff were quick to not let that count, should we lose tomorrow. "The pitch has the OK from UEFA, so it is playable", said Slomka. "The pitch is no topic for us, we have to play concentrated.", added Schlaudraff.

The coach gave good news in terms of the team. Lars Stindl is recovering from the cold and will start tomorrow, Moa is also fit and should get the nod for the first XI.

The only question there is now, is about the set-up of the team. We are not really a team that can defend a 0-0 for more than 90 minutes. Coach said so. It will be more offensive than parking the bus and more defensive than the game against Stuttgart. I suspect the line-up will be something like this: Zieler - Schulz, Haggui, Pogatetz, Chahed - Pander, Stindl, Pinto, Schlaudraff - Diouf, Abdellaoue. Whether that will look like two banks of four with Schlaudraff on the right and Stindl as DM, or as a diamond as in recent weeks with Schlaudraff top and Stindl right remains to be seen.

Then there is the importance of substitutions, which helped us in the first leg. Sobiech is still a minor doubt, but Ya Konan will sit on the bench to make an impact. Schlaufi was quick to shut down the voices at the press conference who compared the trio Diouf, Schlaudraff, Abdellaoue to the "magical triangle" Bobic, Balakov, Elber from the 90s, saying that it is never about a few guys, but also the partners up front, like Didi and Artur, and the defense as well.


So, what to make of all this? Once the game starts In Bruges, Brugge will start brightly, showing who's in charge. I hope we survive that first wave and then score ourselves. An away goal will get
 us in the driving seat and Brugge with a mountain to climb (anyone has the cliche ticker to tell me how many?). The tie is still 50/50, 22,000 people will be there, 1,500 of our fans. They want to represent us as loudly as possible.

I'll go for a narrow victory or a draw. A clean sheet is something to hope for but I doubt we can get it. This would be obviously all we need In Bruges to advance. I really look forward to it, the way things are going is very entertaining for every Hannover fan and given that Bayern lost just moments ago, leaves us to get some points for the coefficient. I don't want to do this via added time or penalty kicks, we need to be able to save fitness for Sunday v Dortmund.

Come on Hannover, let's make this night another memorable one.

Good, Better, Best - envied by the rest

Hannover fans left their mark in Copenhagen, in front of the Little Mermaid

Hello back,

apologies for the time off. As expected I didn't have much time during the stay in Copenhagen to scribble things about the rather fortunate 1-1 draw in Mainz (thanks Artur Sobiech, welcome on the list of Bundesliga scorers.) and even after my return back to the border - on the Danish side mind - there was only time to watch the Europa League game on Danish TV, nothing more. And on the weekend, I was quite busy as well, so with quite some delay, a round-up of three matches.


Game 1: As in the first leg at home, we fell behind against Mainz very early in the match. For the rest of the time, we struggled to break Mainz down, wasting quite a few good chances and having to make godd saves and clearances on our own side. In the end, it was a classic joker goal by Artur "Snail" Sobiech, giving the game a very fitting score line. A negative from the game that the clean sheet run ended, but the better was that we stills tayed unbeaten since the end of November, when we lost in Liege. Credit to Mainz, they played well and showed how capable they are up front, but our ability to hang on till the end gave us the goal we needed, so well done team.


Game 2: Midweek action, how have we missed you! European nights clearly are enjoyed by our supporters, the atmosphere was quite magic. The first half was not the best, a lot of fight and not many clear cut chances, but even then our spirit was clearly seen. In the second half we had a good chance by Schmiedebach before suddenly falling behind out of the blue, when our defense was caught napping. Once again, however, we showed some incredible spirit, and boy we needed that against an incredibly awful referee and his team. That penalty not given, that goal not given (the assistant ref clearly had Euros in his eyes there, seriously), and to be fair our actual penalty we got then in the 80th minute.

When Sobiech scored the equalizer, everyone in the stadium and in front of the screen immediately checked the guys in yellow to see what they'd come up with this time to deny us. But it counted, what a relief. And then that cheeky penalty win by "the Snail" and the even cheekier conversion by "Schlaufi". We had more chances to effectively put a lid on the tie, but it wasn't meant to be. A 2-1 at home v Brugge is a great result though and the away leg in 2 days time looks certainly doable to advance to the round of last 16.


Game 3: What a match. Just, what a match. The stats looked good for us before the game; we have a great home form, Stuttgart a woeful away form. And apparently they can't defend corners. If they pretend they do, then they are the worst pretenders I've ever seen. Every Hannover attacker was allowed to basically do whatever he liked in the Stuttgart box when Stindl, Pinto or especially Pander stood outside, ready to smack a ball in. The goals by Haggui and Diouf (1st of the season, congratulations Mame) set things up nicely. Then Ya Konan showed that he is out of form and Schmiedebach that he is no goal scorer. Pander after the break put the icing on his personal performance cake with a cracking drive and Lars Stindl put the icing on all the other icing by scoring his first goal of the season.

We let Stuttgart back, I guess some people - if they know about it - thought of something of a Arsenal v Newcastle collapse, but here there was a) less time, b) they already took their wonder goal for the 2nd, c) Hannover didn't concede weird penalties, d) RRZ made an out-stan-ding save from Ibisevic to keep the score at 4-2.

That result is the highest amount of goals scored in the league since September 2010, when we beat Bremen 4-1. It was so brilliant to see us creating lots of chances and taking them, even without Moa, who was rested for Thursday and should be with us in Bruges for the crucial 2nd leg.


With all this said, and fans of other teams certainly quite surprised to see us pull off something like that, it's safe to see that things look very bright at the moment. Important players get new long-term contracts. After Schmiedebach, Schlaudraff and Haggui earlier in the season, it was Pogatetz today to sign a deal till 2015. Cherundolo's contract will automatically extend itself to 2013 with one more appearance this season, Lars Stindl is the next guy to get a new contract. We are unbeaten in 9 league games and in 10 games in all competitions, and still unbeaten at home all season, if you take away that cup defeat in extra time v Mainz.

I'll get a preview for the return match in Bruges up tomorrow with the latest on players in and out. Until then, enjoy your happy days, Hannover fans. Looking at all the problems other teams have, let's be envied for once. It's been a while.

Auf gehts, Hannover.

(Kind of) Minimalistic post for a minimalistic team

The Reds (here wearing green) look for consecutive away wins

Hello everyone,

after the long awaited away win, the team is on the road again to play in Mainz on Saturday afternoon. Let's hope the guys liked the taste of an away victory and look forward to a quick repeat.

Slomka gave a quick injury update on Thursday afternoon and definitely ruled out Markus Miller, and described Schulz' condition as extremely doubtful. So I think it's fair to say that he won't make the squad.

With the return of Karim Haggui and his quick re-integration, things at center-back look still quite well. Mario Eggimann got a lot of praise from Slomka again, especially his attitude in training when he was only 2^nd row behind Pogatetz and Haggui. With "Emi“ still suspended, the most likely pairing to start on Saturday will be, despite "Jackson“ Avevor's inspiring performance, Eggimann and Haggui.

Schulz out also means, that the left side will stay with Pander as left-back and Rausch on the left wing. Their performance looked improvable in Berlin, but I am confident that it will work better this time.

According to the HAZ (Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung), Mame Diouf has a starting spot up front, with Schlaudraff moving to the right side. Given that Stindl is normally a starter for Slomka and Schmiedebach's disappointing performances in the last couple of games, the side could well look like the 2^nd half side in Berlin (Obviously with Haggui instead of Avevor). I don't know how good the HAZ's inside sources are, but it sounds reasonable. (The Stindl/Schmiedebach part is my educated guess.)

Looking forward to the match itself, the match will be tough, but I hope our defense will be as solid as in recent games. Another clean sheet would be club record, apparently. This is where Slomka's main priority lies, keeping the own goal shut, then move forward and use Moa, Schlaufi and Diouf to give clinical punches to the Mainz defense, which hasn't always been the best.

On the other hand, Mainz have looked good going forward this season and we have to be very careful to not be overrun like Freiburg was. Unlike Berlin, Mainz can as well score, so another bad 1^st half like in the Olympiastadion could be lethal. Mirko Slomka has a lot of respect for the Tuchel-Team, praising its versatility and aggressiveness.

In my opinion, at least a point is vital in the chase of European spots. I see the point of the clean sheet, but in the same press conference Slomka also said that we need to up our away performance to get closer to the 5^th and 6^th spot. Therefore the team has tried to practise some offensive alternatives this week and we can look forward to how that will look like on Saturday.

On that note: Due to personal commitments, the Mainz review post will be combined with the Brügge preview post, probably pretty last-minute on Thursday. It might work out, it might as well be a massive post on Friday. The most important part is, that it will happen.

Here's hoping for 2 consecutive away wins. At least a draw and/or a clean sheet would be fine with me.

Auf geht's Hannover!

Moa breaks the ice - The LSI keeps moving

Hello everyone,

first of all I am happy to say that I have no major freeze damage and am very well, currently enjoying an upgrade on the train to travel 1^st class, without any extra payment. This is like the icing on the cake for this weekend.

But first things first; the LSI on the cruise to Berlin. Slomka decided to go with experience ahead of young spirit and started with Schulz instead of Avevor as 2^nd center-back alongside Eggimann. Apart from that, the team was as usual: Pander and Rausch on the left side, Cherundolo and Stindl on the right. Berlin was under a lot of pressure because of their last matches and looked the side more into it in the first 45 minutes. Especially our midfield, but also the defense lacked the determination and aggressiveness to fight back, and so Berlin got themselves a few pretty decent chances. Especially Pander looked all over the place with Patrick Ebert making some good runs. RRZ had to make a few good saves, twice the ball went just wide of the post. Apart from the weak attempt by Schmiedebach and two conversions by Pinto, our team didn't really have anything to offer. Bad luck was involved as well, when Schulz went down and stayed there. He had to be subbed off midway through the first half and Avevor finally got his game.

The most dramatic scene of the match might've been the turning point of the match,. At least (I hope) the team realized that they couldn't continue like that anymore. Hertha was combining as they liked in the final 3^rd and when Ramos squared for Lasogga it looked like a certain goal from where I was sitting. Unfortunately, that was the other side of the stadium. So when the net didn't move as we all expected it to, disbelief started to spread. How was that possible? When the ball was in the net 20 seconds later, it all looked like being worth nothing and the relief of it being rightly called offside was even greater. Now, after watching several highlights, one can only congratulate Christopher Avevor to what was an extraordinary goalline clearance. Two, to be exact. A fantastic effort by the 19-year-old and that was a perfect situation of sink or swim; and he swam - in icy water.

During half-time, Slomka must've been quite annoyed with the performance and took off Schmiedebach. Something quite remarkable, given that changes would normally happen later in the match and now we had two in the first 45 minutes. Mame Diouf came on to make his Hannover debut and went up to Moa, who was close to invisible in the first half, with Schlaudraff taking the right wing and Stindl playing mainly as a holding midfielder. The team now looked sharper and tried to play some football as well. And, oh wonder, it worked. Suddenly the team began to exploit the right wing more and more, where Hamburg had run riot against Kobiashvili the week before. We didn't create that many clear-cut chances, but Diouf got his first shot on target and in general the energy level was much higher within the team.

Berlin were still dangerous, but the conditions didn't help them either. RRZ really enjoyed coming out of the goal and claiming crosses and long punts upfront. That seemed to be Hertha's strategy for the 2^nd half and they rarely really struggled Avevor and Eggimann, CBs #4 and #5, and if something dangerous occurred, then they provided a last-ditch tackle or RRZ collected.

Then the 68^th minute: A free kick in the own half was quickly taken and reached Mame Diouf in midfield. He sent Moa towards goal and the Norwegian took a touch to then whack the ball in the left top corner with his left boot. A stunning effort from around 20 meters and he left Thomas Kraft, who lets quite a few long range goals in, to make another curb in the goalpost for a goal conceded. He wasn't really at fault for that one, though. Moa just scored a “goal of the day”.

Things went from bad to worse for Hertha, when their debutant Neumann saw a deserved second yellow. At that point, I think I saw the first Berlin fans leaving. The stadium wasn't full, in total they had 37,000 maniacs sitting in the Siberian Winter for the match and maybe those guys just wanted to make sure to not lose their legs. Berlin fought a bit against the defeat, trying to make something happen, but the closest they got was a header that went just wide after a Ronny free kick.

It's quite tough to choose one Man of the Match on our side for this match. An obvious candidate is Moa for his screamer; Mame Diouf made an impressive debut with good runs, great effort, a lot of energy, tracking back and the assist; Christopher Avevor played very solid in the back and saved his GK's ass; and finally RRZ because he is a beast in the box and the only remaining goal keeper in the Bundesliga yet to concede a goal in the Rückrunde. For me, Moa claims 1^st spot with Avevor, Diouf and RRZ on the ranks 2 to 4.

After the match, Michael Skibbe (3 matches, 0 points, 1:5 goals) put nearly all the blame on ref Peter Sippel, making him responsible for as good as any situation against his team. To be fair, I don't like Peter Sippel very much. His calls can be quite questionable and he doesn't have the proper quality he once had. But in the first half, a lot of his decisions went wrongly in Hertha's favour, in the second half, maybe the odd decision was lucky for us. I certainly didn't have anything to complain there. But the refusal to take any blame himself stunned me. Meanwhile, Hertha fans try to figure out how many games of the remaining 14 they have to win to stay up. Tough times ahead in the capital there.

But for us, these 3 points, the first away win in the league since August would you believe, were massive. Looking at the other results (and the Sunday games yet to be played), there were only two winners in 7 matches. Okay, Dortmund will pick all the headlines once again for reclaiming top spot and the rest dropping points, and we didn't gain any spot. However, this brings us nearly to our destination already. We are only one point off the 6^th spot for the Europa League. We are 6 points clear to 8^th place, 12 points off the first relegation spot. We have 30 points. That is completely uninteresting for us what happens down there. Of course, as usual, our goal difference is still negative. But Leverkusen and Bremen have a very similar one, so nothing really lost there.

With that win catapulting us into 8^th position on the away table, the LSI is steadily making way from Berlin to Mainz. On Saturday, that is our next challenge. I think we'll take a similar approach to the one in Berlin, the first game of the season was a 1-1 draw (of course) at home and then there is still that unsolved matter of kicking us out in the cup with the only defeat we had in the AWD-Arena all season. That matter is something for the weekend, though. I hope I am able to watch, although I might be somewhere stuck in Copenhagen and being busy otherwise. Apologies in advance.

In any case, our Icebreaker accelerated a little bit, maybe we can increase the speed a tiny bit now so that in the end of the season we can look forward to foreign shores again.

Auf gehts Hannover!

The Lower Saxon Icebreaker starts moving

Part of the LSI

Ahoy there,

for a long time, we were not able to break out of the huge amount of draws we accumulated. It all looked to be a stalemate season. But now, slowly, very slowly, we on the LSI start moving. Bit for bit. And our movement upwards began... in a town called Nürnberg.

Finally a win for us in a pretty ordinary match. It was the Friday night match, everyone was watching, and it wasn't the best of games. I only managed to watch the 2nd half and highlights, but the game looked exactly how we play these days. We look good early on, normally even score, and then sit back and try to defend the lead. In the last fixtures we failed to keep the clean sheet and drew, this time we got quite lucky that it stayed that way. Nürnberg decided to show up and we did our best to hide and wish for good luck. Thanks Didavi, by the way. You are in the shortlist to “Miss of the Season”.

The big talking point after the match was the Pogatetz/Wollscheid incident, where Dieter Hecking took it in his hands to perform “a Wenger”. He had all the “what if's” on his side. As a matter of fact, “Manu” can't complain about the outcome, the three match ban is accepted and therefore the case is closed. He just wasn't clever enough and reacted to some provocations that always happen before a set piece. Anyone saying something different obviously has never man-marked an opponent in a football match.

To look at the positives from a rather dire match: Moa scored, thank God. It took him a while to put his scoring boots on again, but his finishing was spot-on and much needed. We kept a clean sheet. RRZ got the opportunity to make a few good saves and our back-line only looked bad in the last 20 minutes of the match.

Looking forward to tomorrow's match here in Berlin, there are two to three issues that have been raised over the last few days:

1) The defense, or more specifically, the center-back position. With Haggui at the ACN and Pogatetz suspended, both first choice CBs are out. Replacement Eggimann looked good in his first match for ages against Nürnberg, so he will definitely play. The guy next to him will be either LB Christian Schulz or youngster Christopher Avevor. Both have their qualities – it's mainly force and speed versus experience – and the coach made clear that neither of them is ruled out. Schulz returned to training and will be fit for the match. I suspect he will get the nod ahead of Avevor, but it feels like a coin flop, given Slomka's praise for the youngster in Portugal and due to his performance in training.

2) Training leads us swiftly to the subject of Mame Diouf. Our new signing in the January transfer window has left an impression with the new team mates. RRZ was impressed with his finishing, he should know him from old United days, and his ability in the first 2 to 3 training sessions shines through, apparently. He took the #39 instead of the available #18, because he doesn't like even numbers on his back. And it could very well happen that he shows that number tomorrow. Slomka likes the new guy, saying that he was looking for that kind of striker, that Diouf is, but now needs to be integrated into the team. How about bringing him on in the 2nd half v Berlin?

3) Berlin, the next topic. The mood is not good in Berlin, to be precise, it's frosty. In both ways. First up, the weather. It's cold. Very cold. It should be around -10°C tomorrow, making the experience of watching even more “heroic”. Neither team is putting in a performance like a Dortmund or Gladbach at the moment, fans will have to drink a lot of mulled wine to get in the mood and keep warm. Berlin is an awful home team, they are 18th in the home table, with 2 wins and 3 draws. To be fair though, Hannover is not a bit better away, we're even worse. The side of the new coach Michael Skibbe has failed to impress by any means and the tradition of misunderstanding of board and coach set up by club hero Dieter Hoeness looks to be continued under Michael Preetz. They are certainly not a club that knows, how to keep quiet. The team has a lot of injured players as well, but Slomka still warns about their quality to sit deep and stay well-organised. Something, I wouldn't always agree with, given that I saw them last week against Hamburg and they got sliced open via their left defense occasionally. What a coincidence, that 44% of our attacks are done via our right wing. If that is not a tactical set-up, I don't know.

Slomka has furthermore stated that he wants to increase the pressure on both Leverkusen and Bremen. We are in punching distance to the 6th spot, last matchday did us a great favour in terms of cutting ourselves loose from the big pile of teams in danger of getting relegated. Now we have to keep up the results. First priority for the coach is to keep a clean sheet, then go for as goal or two.

Both teams have a massive amount of draws in the league, so that would be the most likely outcome as things stand. Of course we want to take all three points from Hertha, who have been dreadful the last games, showing nothing really. Well, we didn't show much either but still managed to get 4 points in the new year, 4 more than Berlin. The momentum might make the difference between the sides. No-one should expect a lot of goals in this fixture, I hope we can nick it by a goal.

I'll be in the stadium tomorrow, then maybe celebrating the first away win in the league since August. It's about time. Let the LSI continue to travel on, slowly and steadily, until it reaches its destination. 6th spot, here we come.


Auf gehts Hannover!

Groundhog Day for Hannover

Hello everyone from an ICE train currently making its way through a snowy landscape to Berlin. As promised here's my outlook for tonight's game v Nürnberg.

But first, let’s take a look back on the match against Hoffenheim. It will be as short as possible. Basically, we set out a weakened team, with 7 players out injured and 2 off to the ACN. Daniel Royer made his debut for 68 minutes in midfield and made it decent. Nothing special, but his first league match for us and he did alright. Eggimann played for the first time in the league since forever it felt, but surprisingly, he did very well in defence too. All in all, it was a hard-fought match. Hoffenheim are known for their physicality and despite the odd good spell of us they normally out-muscled their opponents, without really creating anything. Ibisevic (then still at Hoffenheim) lost a 1 v 1 against a good Zieler, a few dives gave Salihovic some free kicks to put into the wall or wide, but that was their threat, really.

Sadly, we didn't put in more pressure; mainly because we missed Sergio Pinto in midfield. With Schmiedebach only back from injury last-minute and certainly not up for his best, we certainly missed “Pinte's” presence in the centre of the pitch, tackling, battling, distributing and shooting. Stindl and Stoppelkamp both had a chance, one for the keeper and one deflected wide, in the second half a few scrambles after corners and free kicks. Schlaudraff was missed as well doing the odd run or wonder goal, as he does. The result was 0-0, a very fitting scoreline by all accounts.

So, for tonight, it is great to here that both Pinto and Schlaudraff will return. Nürnberg is not a bad side and have improved since we beat them 2-1 (quite classically against the run of play) in August. We haven't lost for a while, but then we have also only drawn all the time and haven't scored. Moa looked short of supply and will never be a striker like Schlaufi, picking up the ball in midfield for a dummy run and chipping it over the keeper. He wants to poach. And that's what he needs to pick up momentum again. I don't know, however, whether this will be the game to do so.

I look forward to our solid back line, our first choice centre of midfield and our most dangerous players up front. On the wings, we shall see how we look there. I hope Christian Pander plays again and gets the chance for an assist. He looks good for us and might be up there with bargain of the season. I don't know whether Schalke are that happy to see him do well now.

We won't score many, and I hope Nürnberg won't either. I'd hate another draw and so does Slomka and the team. We have no excuses any longer with our best players back and the fans expect the team to win. First and foremost to keep 7th spot, but also to make up ground to the bottom positions, because this area of the table down to the relegation spots is as crowded as Saint Peter's square when the pope has died.

Finally: No new players, but very important signings this week. Aforementioned Pander and Schmiedebach have both signed new contracts, because both were running out in the summer. They signed a new 3 and 4-year-deal, respectively. Pander has really done well this season, assists and goals in the league and in the Europa League. Many people were scared due to his injury record, but the only time he missed a match was due to the flu, not another broken bone or ankle. Slomka certainly saw something in him during his spell at Schalke and took the opportunity when it came up, the coach did a good job there.

Schmiedebach and his new deal is a great sign for the rest of the team. He is a guy who has all the talent and ability to follow in Sergio Pinto's footsteps one day. On the other hand, he has already attracted bigger clubs. Slomka said in the press conference that he spoke with Manu to convince him of his established role in the Hannover line-up and told him that it can be hard to gain that same position in a new club. I think there is no doubt, that if Manu continues to develop as he does, then his ambition will be too high for Hannover and he'll leave. But until then we want him to play well for us as long as possible. A 4-year-deal with improved wages is good business for both sides, that managing looks good from here, at least.

So, with the match coming closer, here's to hopefully 3 points or we have to look for new aims this season.

Auf gehts, Hannover!