Bundesliga round 20

Hamburg v Wolfsburg
Hertha v Bochum
Monchengladbach v Bremen
Hannover v Nurnberg
Eintracht v Cologne
Bayern v Mainz
Schalke v Hoffenheim
Stuttgart v Dortmund
Leverkusen v Freiburg

Two clubs dominated the headlines in Germany during the week and they kick off the weekend with a Friday night fixture at the Volksparkstadion. Hamburg made all the right noises, capturing the highly sought-after Ruud van Nistelrooy. He'll certainly improve their goal scoring record, especially as Paulo Guerrero is still stuck in Peru after recovering from a serious knee injury. His fear of flying, which meant he missed the chance to see a specialist in the United States, has kept him on terra firma. Three times he's boarded a plane bound for Germany, but he had to leave before take-off each time. For their part, Wolfsburg, HSV's opponents this week, were in the news for putting Armin Veh out of his misery. With the benefit of hindsight, it was always going to be tough for Veh, a very quietly spoken man, to take over the treble role that the autocratic Felix Magath left behind. Magath is a one-off. Not many people can act as head coach, sporting director and CEO, but somehow Magath made it work. Veh simply couldn't. Had he had two other people alongside him to fulfil the CEO and sporting director roles and left him to concentrate on coaching the players, then perhaps it could have been different. We shall never know. His side lost their seventh league game of the season last week, to struggling Cologne, and the board acted. Bernd Schuster and Guus Hiddink are the favourites to succeed Veh and both have the credentials to do the Magath job, but Lorenz-Guenther Koestner takes the job on as caretaker in the meantime.

Leverkusen remain top with everyone wondering when the 'Neverkusen' curse will kick in and ruin everything for them. Unlikely this week, you'd think, with a home game against lowly Freiburg. Bayern moved up to second, ominously, with a dominant performance over Bremen. They face Mainz this week, but they've already lost to the Frankfurt club this season. Mind, Bayern have got much better since then and Mainz will be doing very well to get something out of this one. Schalke remain right in there despite being held by Bochum last week. They face Hoffenheim this week with pressure mounting on Ralf Rangnick after a miserable 3-0 home defeat by Leverkusen last time out.

Stuttgart are improving under Christian Gross, but run up against the steam train that is Borussia Dortmund this week. Some solid results have seen Stuttgart move away from immediate danger, but they could easily get sucked in if things start going against them soon and Dortmund look in no mood to start dropping points after six straight wins. As the Stuttgart side of 2007, and Wolfsburg last year, would testify, that is championship form. The only thing is that maybe they've started their run a bit too early. Bremen have dropped off, but played much better - in patches at least - against Bayern last week. With the likes of Aaron Hunt, Marko Marin and Mesut Ozil, they're a very young side and maybe it's next year we should be looking at them as real contenders. They're certainly capable and should have too much for Gladbach, Marin's previous employers, this weekend.

Hertha are in a proverbial six-pointer against Bochum who come off the back of that draw with Schalke, and it's 16th v 17th in Hannover where Nurnberg are the visitors. Cologne have pulled away from the danger zone a bit and they go to a very much mid-table Eintracht.