Vfb Stuttgart - Hannover 96
Football : Germany : Bundesliga
Mercedes-Benz Arena
Saturday, 20th March 2010 – kickoff 15:30

Vfb Stuttgart

After the exit from the Champions league, Stuttgart returns back to their Bundesliga duties where they are in pursuit of a place that leads in the Euro cups next season. They were really outplayed against Barcelona, but even before that match no one expected anything different than easy Barcelona win.

Now their focus will only be on the league, where this weekend they will have an opponent which is ideal for a quick recovery and with a win they will have a chance to further improve their position at the table.

In the last three Bundesliga matches their form is not that consistent as they have started with a win against Eintracht Frankfurt, then they drew against Werder Bremen, and last week were defeated against Schalke 04. Those results were pretty much expected having in mind the toughness of their opponents and their focus on Champions League.

Vfb Stuttgart in this match will play with three strikers up front - Cacau, Progrebynak and Marica and they will surely cause lots of trouble to Hannover`s shaky defense. Cacau is leading scorer of the team with 8 goals scored so far.

For this match, Coach Gross can not count only on the defender Serdar Tasci who is injured and out of combination.

Probable Vfb Stuttgart line-up :
Lehmann,
Celozzi, Trasch, Delpierre, Molinaro,
Kuzmanovic, Khedira, Hleb,
Cacau, Marica, Progrebnyak

Hannover 96

Hannover 96 finally have raised their game and after their negative run of nine straight defeats, now they have two wins in a row which they got against their rivals from the bottom half of the table – away win against Eintracht Frankfurt and home win against SC Freiburg. Those wins relieved the team from the increasing pressure but still there is long way to go and they are in desperate need of points in order to escape the dropping zone.

Hannover 96 are currently 16th at the table with 23 points and one point behind the safe zone. The weakest part of the team of course is the defense which is terrible – they have conceded massive 48 goals so far and only Freiburg with 49 goals conceded have worse record then them. They have also conceded at least one goal in each of the last eleven league matches.

Jan Rosenthal and Altin Lala will have to miss this match through injuries together with Mikael Forssell who has been out of the squad for some time now.

Good news for the team is the return of the midfielder Hanno Balitsch who has recovered from his knee injury but he will start this match from the bench.

The team will play with two strikers up front - Arouna Kone, who has been in very good form lately, who will be partnered with Didier Ya Konan.

Probable Hannover 96 line-up :
Fromlowitz,
Cherundolo, Haggui, Durica, Schulz
Pinto, Andreasen, Elson, Djakpa,
Ya Konan, Koné

The Betting Verdict

The first match between these teams this season ended in surprising 1-0 win for Hannover 96, but it is well known that that loss came in period when Stuttgart were at the bottom of the Bundesliga table and soon the coach was sacked.

However, Stuttgart have better overall record against Hannover especially at home where in the last 20 matches they have won 15 times against their opponents.

Stuttgart might be a bit tired from their CL match but still they have more quality and more offensive weapons then their opponents.
Hannover showed some signs of improvement in the past couple of weeks, but at the moment i do not think that they are a team that can win three times in a row and especially not against the team that will fight for a place in Europe next season until the end.

I think that the recent good form of Hannover will be a warning sign for Stuttgart and they will take this match seriously. Hannover will try to surprise and they will probably score against Stuttgart, but if Stuttgart scores in the first half then they will probably control the match to the end and get another win here.

The Statistics :

The Pick :

Vfb Stuttgart 2-1 Hannover 96

FIXED ODDS BETTING :

Home win for Vfb Stuttgart