Hannover sack Schaaf

Hannover have confirmed the sacking of head coach Thomas Schaaf after the Bundesliga’s bottom club lost a fifth successive league match on Saturday.

A 3-0 home defeat to Hamburg left Hannover 10 points adrift at the bottom of the table with only six matches remaining.

Following a run of defeats with only one goal scored in five games, Hannover confirmed that Schaaf – who signed an 18-month deal to coach the club in December 2015 – has been sacked.

Hannover director Martin Bader explained that Schaaf has been let go as the club wants to end the season with “impetus”.

“Thomas has followed his work always very meticulously and focused,” Bader said. “He, along with his coaching team, exhausted all possibilities to achieve positive results with the team. Unfortunately, this has not succeeded.

“After the 10th defeat in our 11th game we have therefore come to the conclusion that we do not want to end the season [in this way] and try to enter next season with a new impetus with the change in the manager position.”

Schaaf’s assistants Wolfgang Rolff and Matthias Honerbach have also been sacked, with youth coach Daniel Stendel placed in temporary charge.