Defeat in Frankfurt

Sandro Schwarz made two changes to the starting eleven for the away game in Frankfurt. Jonjoe Kenny came back into the back four, replacing the injured Peter Pekarík (knee injury). Upfront, Florian Niederlechner made his first start for the club in the place of Wilfried Kanga, who is out for a short while with a toe injury. New signing Tolga Ciğerci made the matchday squad for the first time since returning and found himself on the bench.

Kolo Muani scores a brace to make it 2-0

Lead by Marvin Plattenhardt, making his 200th Bundesliga appearance for the club, Hertha started in a 4-3-3. Hertha, wearing their red their kit on the day, had to initially survive a series of Frankfurt attacks, before Jean-Paul Boëtius started Hertha’s first attack. However, Niederlechner was unable to reach his pass into the centre of the box (6’). A short time later, Dodi Lukébakio had a shot from range but his effort was blocked wide (10‘). After that, Frankfurt generated increasing pressure on Hertha’s goal, but the Hertha defence, led by Marc Kempf, defended resolutely. Around the 20 minute mark, referee Robert Hartmann gave a penalty after Randal Kolo Muani got in behind Filip Uremović and was brought down by Hertha’s number 5. The France international then stood back up and converted the penalty to give SGE a 1-0 lead (21’). Hertha didn’t hide and sought an immediate answer, with Suat Serdar dribbling into the Frankfurt box, with the ball finding its way to Richter who could not connect properly with his shot (24’). At the other end, Kolo Muani hit the back of the net once again after a move involving Mario Götze and Jesper Lindstrøm (28’). Hertha found it difficult to create chances at the end of the first half, and went into half time trailing 2-0.

Sub Ngankam’s shot cleared off the line

Hertha made three changes heading into the second half, with debutant Ciğerci, Maxi Mittelstädt and Jessic Ngankam replacing Boëtius, Kenny und Lukébakio. The system also changed to a 3-5-2 and Hertha were a lot braver and more decisive going forward. Serdar couldn’t get the ball out of his feet from close range following a Plattenhardt freekick (52’). SGE allowed Hertha to have the ball and looked to score on the counter. They seemed to have done exactly this when Kolo Muani scored again, but the flag immediate went up for offside (55’). Moments later, Tuta was also flagged for offside with the ball in the back of the net (58’). Ngankam had the most dangerous chance for Hertha, but a combination of Kevin Trapp and Tuta cleared the ball off the line (62’). In this period it looked most likely that it would be Hertha to score, but Oliver Glasner’s side slowly regained control of the game and prevented any dangerous chances for the ‘Old Lady’. Ciğerci fired a long range freekick at goal but it was punched away by Trapp (83’). He was also in the way in additional time to save an Ngankam shot from a tight angle (90+2’). In the final seconds of the game, Aurelio Buta scored from the edge of the box to make it 3-0 (90+4‘).

Eintracht Frankfurt: Trapp  – Ndicka, Hasebe, Tuta – Max (69‘ Lenz), Sow, Kamada (69‘ Rode), Buta – Götze, Lindstrøm (69‘ Borré) – Kolo Muani (84‘ Alario)

Hertha BSC: Christensen – (46‘ Mittelstädt) Kenny, Uremović, Kempf, Plattenhardt (C) – Boëtius (46‘ Ciğerci), Tousart (80‘ Prince), Serdar – Lukébakio (46‘ Ngankam), Niederlechner (75‘ Scherhant), Richter

Goals: 1-0 Kolo Muani (21‘, penalty), 2-0 Kolo Muani (28‘), 3-0 Buta (90+4‘)

Referee: Robert Hartmann

Yellow cards: Tuta – Tousart, Mittelstädt

Attendance: 49,500