24.01.2010

Draw a fair result

A point away to the side that finished fourth last season, another clean sheet and a game Borussia dominated in phases – there were some positive aspects yesterday.

After the match at Hertha BSC Berlin Borussia boss Michael Frontzeck expressed his bewilderment when a journalist commented that a point at the bottom side was not really good enough. "You have to get away from seeing Hertha as the bottom club, last season they finished fourth", he said. "We were aware of the euphoria generated here after the win over Hannover." Borussia midfielder Thorben Marx, who incidentally was the only native Berliner on the pitch yesterday, took a similar view, saying: "Hertha will get a lot more points in the second half of the season than they did in the first. A number of teams will lose or drop points here."

Special praise for Bailly

That the score remained 0-0, especially in the second half, was largely down to the fact that no more mistakes were made in defence, with goalkeeper Logan Bailly given several opportunities to display his talent. "In the first half I think Hertha had Drobny to thank for keeping the score at 0-0, and in the second Logan showed his quality", said Frontzeck, a view shared by his Hertha counterpart Friedhelm Funkel. "We were the better side in the second half and could have scored", he said. "But in the end a draw was a fair result." Bailly made several last-ditch saves to deny the advancing Hertha strikers. "Logan has kept his first clean sheet in six Bundesliga games and I'm delighted for him", Frontzeck added. "He's proved what he good keeper he is and he was a major reason why we picked up a point today."

The media interest surrounding Bailly was correspondingly large after training on Sunday. Preparations for the forthcoming home fixture with Werder Bremen (Saturday, 1530 CET) begin at 10 am on Tuesday. But otherwise there is nothing to report from the medical department.