| Well the season finally came to an end and Hertha stayed in the top flight to my great relief! It was closer than I would have liked but at least we avoided the stress of the playoff. Thinking back over the past season we have had a bit of a roller coaster with long periods of poor results and the loss of Jos Luhukay. We did see the return of Pal Dardai as the coach who steadied the ship a little when we needed it most. |  |
It’s going to be an interesting year in that we have lost the main shirt sponsor of DB after nine years and the 3.5 million Euros that that entails. Having said this I believe I am correct in saying they will still be contributing one million Euros to the coffers. We have also had a notable lack of goals in the latter part of the season which is an issue that needs to be addressed. Needless to say that is going to be a difficult thing to address with a drastically cut budget.
Perhaps the only way forward is to shed some of the wages bill that the club is currently carrying. This can then release funds for attracting new players and has, in practice already started with the departure of Jonny Heitinga who never really settled into the club but allegedly cost the club 1.8 million Euros in wages – half of the sponsorship money reduction experienced following the departure of DB. Marcel Ndjeng will also be leaving to an as yet undisclosed destination and rumours abound of Ronny leaving to go to the Middle East. The Bild (that ever reliable source of information (not)) have talked about the departure of: Ronny, Johannes van den Bergh, Rune Jarstein, Sandro Wagner and Peter Niemeyer. If half of this is vaguely true the squad will be greatly reduced and funds released for new players.
On the subject of which Hertha have already signed a young talented winger on a free from Bayern – Mitchell Weiser (21) who’s contract expired this summer. So far he has not been scoring many goals which is a bit worrying although he does have a lot of potential. Coming on a free transfer is great but I expect he’ll want to be paid and that will have to come from the stretched budget. Another possibility is the arrival of Balazs Dzsudzsak (28), captain of Hungarian national team and who scored 7 goals and provided 13 assists last year in Moscow. It is by no means certain as I’m typing this but he is a key player for Pal Dardai and could form part of the ever growing contingent of Hungarians in the Capital.
Perhaps the only way forward is to shed some of the wages bill that the club is currently carrying. This can then release funds for attracting new players and has, in practice already started with the departure of Jonny Heitinga who never really settled into the club but allegedly cost the club 1.8 million Euros in wages – half of the sponsorship money reduction experienced following the departure of DB. Marcel Ndjeng will also be leaving to an as yet undisclosed destination and rumours abound of Ronny leaving to go to the Middle East. The Bild (that ever reliable source of information (not)) have talked about the departure of: Ronny, Johannes van den Bergh, Rune Jarstein, Sandro Wagner and Peter Niemeyer. If half of this is vaguely true the squad will be greatly reduced and funds released for new players.
On the subject of which Hertha have already signed a young talented winger on a free from Bayern – Mitchell Weiser (21) who’s contract expired this summer. So far he has not been scoring many goals which is a bit worrying although he does have a lot of potential. Coming on a free transfer is great but I expect he’ll want to be paid and that will have to come from the stretched budget. Another possibility is the arrival of Balazs Dzsudzsak (28), captain of Hungarian national team and who scored 7 goals and provided 13 assists last year in Moscow. It is by no means certain as I’m typing this but he is a key player for Pal Dardai and could form part of the ever growing contingent of Hungarians in the Capital.
Just to add a little further spice to budgetary concerns in the DFB Pokal draw Hertha drew the giant killers that knocked them out of the cup last year – Arminia Bielefeld. Oh great, looking forward to that one after last year but hey, onwards and upwards!
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