OK so let's start with an apology for not publishing a Bundesbag last week. To be frank, yours truly is experiencing a radical shifting of his work/life balance lately and simply ran out of blogging steam. Sorry about that.Moving on then and probably the biggest news to update you on (apart from the sacking of Wolfsburg coach Armin Vey) is that Hertha Berlin are still unbeaten. Yes yes, you can keep your Leverkusens and your Bayern's. You can even keep your Schalkes. But since the restart of the season the bottom club have not lost a game. Last weekend they managed to fend off the mighty Bochum with a hard fought goalless draw. New coach Friedhelm Funkel still has a job to do to overhaul the seven-point gap between the bottom of the Bundesliga and safety. However, not losing is a good start.
Bizarrest result of the round was at Borussia Park where 'Gladbach stormed into a 3-0 lead against Werder Bremen in the first 18 minutes! Goals from Reus, Colautti and Bobbadilla had everyone's jaws dropping in astonishment. Mesut Ozil struck back for the away team after 26 minutes only for Bobbadilla to score a second nine minutes later. While that proved to be sufficient for 'Gladbach to win the game it was not the end of the scoring. Claudio Pizarro managed to score a second for Bremen before half time ending a first half which featured 5 (five) goals! The 85th minute strike by Frings added some tension to proceeding but proved too little, too late or however the expression goes in German.
Another exciting moment missed while we were away was the arrival of Ruud van Nistelrooy at Hamburg, the news of which was broken in English by the Bundesbag on Twitter (oh yes, we can break news). Bruno Labbadia fought off the attention of at least two desperate and skint Premier League clubs and are now paying goodness knows what for the injury-prone goal machine to sit in the stands looking cold and wondering why he decided to move to northern Germany. Anyhoo, they could certainly use his goals if last Friday is anything to go by. There were 90 minutes on the clock before Piotr Trachowski's free kick salvaged a point against the manager-less Wolfsburg. If Hamburg have any designs on the title they'll need to go on a Wolves-style run and the Dutchman wil need to be at the centre of it.
Speaking of the title it's 'as you were' at the top. Both Bayern Munich and Bayer Leverkusen keep winning. Both made short work of their opponents. Bayern comfortably saw off Mainz (who you suspect are starting to tire) and Leverkusen were comfortable victors over Freiburg (Sami Hyypia scores again). Schalke are keeping the top two honest. They beat Hoffenheim 2-0. Kevin Kuranyi still keeps scoring and has rediscovered his mojo under Felix Magath.
Elsewhere, Koln's mini run of good form continued at Frankfurt with a 2-1 win (still no goal for Podolski). Nurnberg coach Dieter Hecking returned to his old club, Hannover, who had dumped him so heartlessly earlier in the season and like any vengeful ex-partner, tried to look cool after pasting them 3-1 thanks to a hat trick by Albert Bunjaku.
Finally, Dortmund's fantastic run was brought to a screeching halt by the ever improving Stuttgart. Returning BVB defender Felipe Santana opened the scoring by putting through his own net. Barrios equalised and the game was in the balance until Zdravko Kuzmanovic scored well inot the second half. With the Dortmund player's resistance broken, goals from Marika and Trasch turned a hard fought win into a rout. Stuttgart are up to tenth and well on course for a Europa League spot as predicted by the Bundesbag last year. Oh yes!
That's it. Results and table here. Follow the Bundesbag on Twitter here.
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