die Tabelle lügt nicht! (Bundesliga Week Four)

1. Ham­burg SV

HSV have just opened up a cemetary next to the Nord­bank Arena. With Mar­tin Jol lead­ing the way, Ham­burg top the table for the first time in nine years. Mean­while, the big man’s old club are in last place in the EPL. Sup­port­ers of Tot­ten­ham Hot­spur are putting in inquiries to a plot for their beloved Direc­tor of Foot­ball, so he knows his place: beneath Mar­tin Jol.

2. Bay­ern Munich

After two draws, they have beat up on weak oppo­nents to crawl near the top. There are wor­ry­ing sings at Bay­ern though, because Lucio has for­got his posi­tion and may well become a prob­lem for Klinsman’s team, who can’t afford to have their most expe­ri­enced defender leav­ing their young keeper exposed.

3. Schalke 04

Yes he allowed three goals, but stand-in Ralf Fahrmann made a solid debut. He was not at fault for any of the goals, and made a brave save that pre­served the points. Some good news, after their col­lapse against BVB, is that Orlando Enge­laar played in their mid­week vic­tory over Nicosia.

4. Borus­sia Dortmund

I have stated that Klopp needs an upgrade over Kringe on the left wing; how­ever, he was the per­fect player to have in this tense derby. He was a tena­cious hard-man down the left flank against Rafinha and dished out some bruis­ing tackles.

5. Stuttgart

Jan Simak was a handy sign­ing for Armin Veh. He had excel­lent move­ment and was a tire­less worker in the impo­tent dis­play by the heav­ily injured Swabi­ans. He and Lehmann were the only positives.

6. TSG Hoffenheim

They thor­oughly deserved a win against Stuttgart. Who would have thought that a point would be a dis­ap­point­ing result for die Hoffe against the recent cham­pi­ons? Their mid­field was able to dom­i­nate although they were effec­tively out­num­bered by two due to Veh’s odd lineup. Sejad Sal­i­hovi? found acres of space in a con­gested midfield.

7. Bayer Leverkusen

I have to ques­tion the deci­sion to adjust to Freidrich’s dis­missal by replace Djakpa with Kladec. Why a defender for a defender, when you have a lead? Replac­ing Keissling or Helmes with Kladec would have made much more sense as it wouldn’t have ruined the mid­field shape as either for­ward can play alone. Labbadia’s choice effec­tively took Augusto, who dom­i­nated the first half hour, out of the game and gave mid­field dom­i­nance to Hamburg.

8. Wolfs­burg

They break a five year drought in the cap­i­tal and are close to match­ing their longest streak with­out a defeat. Yet, you get the feel­ing that they are doing it with smoke and mir­rors. The defense is much shakier than last year, which is a worry con­sid­er­ing who they signed in the summer.

9. Werder Bremen

was the game changer for Werder as he replaced Frank Bau­mann in the 63rd and three goals fol­lowed. Will he be a super­sub or can he be that dynamic for 90 min­utes? A lack­lus­ter show­ing against Fam­a­gusta points to the former.

10. Hertha BSC

On Sat­ur­day, Lucian Favre had des­ig­nated Cicero to be the penalty taker. This had to do with the fact that Marko Pan­telic had missed his last three penal­ties. When a penalty was awarded in the first half, Pan­telic demanded the ball and sub­se­quently missed num­ber four and prob­a­bly cost The Old Lady the game. The biggest ques­tion I have is what was their capt­ian Frei­drich doing dur­ing the argu­ment over the ball?

11. Bochum

Bochum won their first game at home since last March. This is a pos­i­tive step for­ward for Mar­cel Koller’s men if they hope to avoid relegation.

12. Han­nover 96

Jan Schlau­draff had been Hannover’s best per­former this sea­son, but hadn’t been able to score yet. He scored a brace in the Reds romp over Glad­bach as ret­ri­bu­tion against the team that once sold him to Aachen.

13. FC Köln

Play­ing Kick and Rush foot­ball against one of Europe’s elites is usu­ally a recipe for dis­as­ter. Novakovic was left stranded and Petit was absent from the game as the Bil­ly­goats had only 43% possession.

14. Karl­sruhe

The good news is that they didn’t lose their third straight.

15. Borus­sia Mönchengladbach

The only ref­eree to have a worse week­end than Lutz at the Reiver-Derby was Markus Schmidt, who gave away two awful penal­ties against Glad­back this past week. Unfor­tu­nately, the penal­ties were the least of the Foals prob­lems as their mid­field was over­run, espe­cially on the right.

16. Ein­tra­cht Frankfurt

Only Ein­tra­cht could be involved in a con­tro­versy involv­ing Madonna that didn’t involve sex.

17. Arminia Bielefeld

They are off to their worst start in 24 years and have now made it 400 days with­out a road victory.

18. Energie Cot­tbus

Bojan Pras­nikar has taken his team to train at a local brothel. You know the rest.

Tagged as: Jan Schlaudraff, Lucio, Marko Pantelic, Martin Jol, Mesut Ozil