Struggling Hanover sack Bergmann

Hanover 96 coach Andreas Bergmann on Tuesday became the sixth Bundesliga coach to be sacked this season after his side dropped into the German league’s bottom three last weekend.

It has been a disastrous season for the north German club after their captain and Germany goalkeeper Robert Enke committed suicide on November 10 and now the team has slipped into the relegation zone.

Saturday’s 3-0 home defeat by bottom-side Hertha Berlin put Hanover in the bottom three after their first game back following the winter break and Bergmann has paid the price for his side’s run of seven games without a win.

“We will try to present a short-term follow-up solution,” said Hanover’s director of sport Jorg Schmadtke.

“After three consecutive defeats and a run of now seven games without victory, the leaders of Hanover 96 no longer feel Andreas Bergmann can give the team the necessary impetus to stay in the Bundesliga.”

Bergmann only took over in August after Dieter Hecking, who now coaches Nuremberg, was sacked after just two games but after Bergmann’s 16 matches in charge, Hanover had won just four games.

But the 50-year-old helped keep the team together after the hammer-blow of Enke’s suicide.

“Andreas Bergmann put in some good work and guided the team through the difficult phase after the dreadful tragedy of Robert Enke with feeling,” said Schmadtke.

“But, unfortunately, the necessary victories we need to make sure we stay in the Bundesliga have not come.”

Both former Schalke coach Mirko Slomka and Holger Stanislawski, who is current coach of second-division Saint Pauli, have been linked to the job.

Hecking, Michael Oenning (Nuremberg), Marcel Koller (VfL Bochum), Lucien Favre (Hertha Berlin) und Markus Babbel (VfB Stuttgart) are the other five coaches who have been sacked by Bundesliga sides this season.