Hertha were victorious in the Olympiastadion back in September but only courtesy of an own goal by Bregerie in the fifth minute. Since then Hertha have had more time to gel as team and will be very much on a high after the game on Monday against Kaiserslautern . . .
Kraft, Pekarik, Kobiashvili (not Holland), Brooks, Lustenberger, Kluge, Niemeyer, Schulz, Wagner, Lasogga, and Ramos. No start for Ronny or Ndjeng as originally published.
The game was not really an inspiring one to be honest. Hertha had a fair amount of possession at the start but did not really capitalise on any of it. Perhaps we missed Ronny in behind to make that little difference. Gradually, Dresden picked up the pace and put Hertha under quite a bit of pressure which eventually lead to a scrappy goal in the 38th minute. I originally thought it was headed in by Poté but it was written down to the hapless Lasogga as an own goal. On the replay it clearly came off the poor mans head and he looked gutted about it as well. One of our guys should have got that ball away but this was not our day. Eventually Ronny came on in the 69th minute but it was not enough to save Hertha. No miracle goals this time and, sadly, the 21 game unbeaten run came to an end in Dresden.
It is never a good sign when the player you single out as the target of your praise in a game is your keeper -Thomas Kraft. He is a great player and I am glad we have him but, I would rather he had nothing to do!
Köln only managed a 1:1 draw on Sunday so that reduces the pressure on the third place in the table. More importantly, Duisburg did us a massive favour on Monday by winning 1:0 at home against Braunschweig. So, for Hertha, at the end of Spieltag 24 . . . Spitzenreiter, Spitzenreiter, Hey Hey!