Hertha Berlin: 2019/20 season so far
Hertha Berlin moved to bring in Krzysztof Piatek and Matheus Cunha in January to save a faltering season - early signs are that it might just work. bundesliga.com puts the Old Lady's troubled 2019/20 campaign so far under the microscope.
Who they signed: Dudi Lukebakio scored a healthy 14 in 34 competitive games for Fortuna Düsseldorf in 2018/19, so the young Belgian striker's arrival on a permanent deal from English Premier League side Watford looked an excellent bit of business for a Hertha side keen to build on last season's mid-table finish. It would also help compensate for the sale of Valentino Lazaro to Inter Milan, as would the arrival of Marius Wolf on loan from Borussia Dortmund. The January signings of Santiago Ascacibar, Cunha, Piatek and Lucas Tousart, who immediately returned on loan to French side Lyon, are a good indication of just how the Old Lady's best-laid plans did not pan out as hoped.
What they expected: Hertha had made a promising start to the 2018/19 campaign, and were as high as sixth 14 games into the campaign. Form had tailed off in the latter half of the season under Pal Dardai, though; with his four-and-a-half-year tenure at an end, and his former Hertha teammate Ante Covic appointed first-team boss, the hope - if not the expectation - of Hertha fans was that they would do better than their 11th place finish of the previous season.
How it played out: No one wants to be drawn away to Bayern Munich for their first league game of the season. Hertha were, and very nearly pooped the champions' opening-night party with only a Robert Lewandowski double denying them a famous win.
That point at the Allianz Arena was their only one in the opening four matches, however. Three successive wins then followed to revive flagging prospects, but between the 3-1 home win over Düsseldorf on Matchday 7 in early October and the 1-0 defeat of Freiburg in the capital on Matchday 14 in mid-December, Hertha picked up just two points from seven league games.
The 4-0 defeat at Augsburg on Matchday 12 had cost Covic his job, and saw Jürgen Klinsmann, the ex-Germany, Bayern and USA coach, take charge of the first team after stepping out of his role on Hertha's advisory board. There was a four-game unbeaten bounce heading into the winter break that lifted spirits and the side into 12th, putting them tantalisingly within touching distance of the top half of the table.
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Come 11 February, however, Klinsmann was gone, his assistant - former Werder Bremen boss Alexander Nouri - was in charge, and Hertha's season was in tatters. While the 4-0 home loss to Bayern to start 2020 was not a huge surprise, the 5-0 defeat in the Olympiastadion to Cologne was the nadir of the new year which has seen Hertha win just twice.
Nouri will have been heartened by the character his side showed in coming back from three down to draw at Düsseldorf and two down to claim a point against Bremen in the last two matches before the league was suspended. It's good that they did, otherwise the six-point cushion they have between themselves and 16th-placed Fortuna would be a lot less comfortable.
Key player: Brazilian striker Cunha has played just four league matches for Hertha since penning a four-and-a-half year deal in January, but the 20-year-old could well prove the man to turn the capital club's season around.
He got two goals in 25 Bundesliga appearances for RB Leipzig last season, and did not hit the net in ten matches for Die Roten Bullen this term; in his two Hertha starts, he's scored on both occasions, helping earn unexpected points in the games that looked all but lost against Düsseldorf and Bremen.
"Cunha always wants the ball, take several opponents out of the game, and has the ball under close control," Nouri said after watching his winter arrival clinch the 2-2 draw against Bremen. "That he scored the all-important second is really great."
Best game: Hertha's trip to Düsseldorf could have turned very nasty indeed. They were 2-0 down inside nine minutes, and when Kenan Karaman netted the hosts' third seconds before the interval, Fortuna looked home and dry against opponents lacking form and confidence, and beaten 5-0 by Cologne only six days earlier.
"It was extremely loud in the dressing room at half-time," Hertha's sporting director Michael Preetz revealed, and Nouri's side translated their coach's ear-splitting rant into match-turning fight. In the space of 11 minutes, an Erik Thommy own-goal, a Cunha strike and a Piatek penalty brought the visitors level as they earned a point for the first time ever after being 3-0 down. "After the 5-0 loss to Cologne and then to come back from 3-0 down at the break is just crazy," acknowledged an astonished Nouri.
Watch: Highlights of Hertha's incredible second-half fightback against Düsseldorf
Biggest surprise: Vladimir Darida joined Hertha from Freiburg in summer 2015 as an accomplished No.6, but has thrived of late in the No.10 role vacated by Ondrej Duda. Despite injury set-backs, the 29-year-old Czech international has chipped in with three goals and three assists, including one of each in the Matchday 7 victory over Düsseldorf, the match-winner against former club Freiburg, and two assists in the 4-0 rout of Cologne earlier in the campaign. Take him out of the equation, and the Old Lady could be at least six points worse off.
"He's completely devoted to the team," commented former Hertha coach Klinsmann following Darida's match-winning goal against Freiburg. "He is a real giver, and he only wants one thing: to pull us up the table."
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