Hannover were relegated from the Bundesliga with a measly 25 points and it would have been a lot worse had they not rallied late in the season under new coach Daniel Stendel. The north German side have been a fairly stable side in the German top flight since being promoted in 2002, but that run has come to a sorry end at the conclusion of a very poor campaign. The warning signs were already there at the end of their last campaign when new coach Michael Frontzeck only just managed to save them from the drop and their summer recruitment was supposed to stabilise the team. Frontzeck’s recruitment revolved around bringing in a series of stars from outside the league, many of whom simply became back up members of the squad or left in the winter. Frontzeck’s reign lasted until Christmas at which point the club were bottom of league. Hannover were therefore amongst the first sides to sack their coach and had their pick of some experienced German coaches with Thomas Schaaf the man picked to take over. Unfortunately he failed to impress in his eleven games where they picked up just a single win which came away to Stuttgart. By the time Stendel came to the helm the club were a long way from safe and relegation was all but inevitable. Overall the standard of the squad was simply not strong enough this term. Both Frontzeck and Schaaf brought in favourites of theirs who performed for a short time but were ultimately not long term prospects. Nowhere was this more clear to see than by Hugo Almeida who made a great start with a goal on debut, but ended up being sent off for an assault on a fellow player and, under Stendel, he was left out of the squad. Under Stendel the club picked up a third of their points this season in the final six matches and he will lead the team in the second division. By the time the season starts for them, the squad will look vastly different with a number of players thought to have relegation release clauses. The few quality players in the team will be stripped away by bigger sides so the younger players that Stendel introduced will be the future of the team. Sadly for Hannover their list of players who have played well this season is only two long. Goalkeeper Ron-Robert Zieler was the main reason that Hannover did not have the worst defensive record in the league as he was once again superb and a top six side is likely to snap him up. Zieler was their best player this term but Hiroshi Kiyotake was also excellent after coming back from a long injury and will also stay in the league. Otherwise a few players did well for parts of the season but in all areas of the side they were found wanting and were simply not good enough to stay in the league this term.
