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The scores from week 23 in Germany read as follows: 5-1, 4-1, 3-1, 2-1, 1-1, 1-0, 1-0, 0-0, 0-0. The moral of the story - Don't bet on the Bundesliga. You never know what you're going to get.

'Spitzenreider' (League leaders) Hertha Berlin overcame crowd hostility, which briefly held up proceedings on Saturday with fireworks aplenty and tasty scenes all-round, on top of a record of 6 winless years against their East German rivals Energie Cottbus to earn a 3-1 win and stretch their lead at the top to 4 points. An Andriy Voronin hat-trick, including a delicious strike to complete the set, was offset by a disastrous Jaroslav Drobny mistake at the other end that gave the hosts the lead 20 minutes in. The words Massimo and Taibi spring to mind as the Hertha custodian (who has been a revelation this term, enjoying an impressive run of form) allowed the ball to squirm through hands, legs and body in a manner that would have cricket coaches up and down England shielding their eyes in horror at the lack of a 'long barrier'.

However, the visitors showed why they are the division's pace setters as Voronin, who is presenting his coach, Lucien Favre with a real dilemma as the return to fitness of fan favourite and former talisman Marko Pantelic asks serious questions as to who should start up front, pounced with a forceful header and a close-range finish to give his side the lead at the break. The Ukrainian's third was a thing of beauty, as he waltzed through the tired Cottbus backline as if it wasn't there before dispatching a low shot between the legs of the last man and past the unsighted Guy Tremmel in the Energie goal into the bottom corner to make the game safe.

The beauty of the goal contrasted heavily with the work of Cottbus's Emil Jula earlier in the half. The striker produced a miss so hideous that his own goalkeeper was forced to look away, despite standing around 100 yards from the action, in sheer terror at the prospect of his team-mate being capable of such criminal incompetence in front of goal. I often allow players to avoid embarassment when guilty of committing a sin that amounts to simple human error. But this was not human. It was monstrous. It was almost a carbon-copy of the Chris Iwelumo incident at Hampden Park and, while Jula can be excused for never having claimed to be a footballer of international standard, as well as for having erred on a pitch that is certainly below the Hampden Park benchmark, the ball was played across at an even lazier pace and the point of contact came even closer to the goal-line, with the ball ending up even further wide of the target. I have seen all 23 weeks of this season's Bundesliga, which is some statement within the context let me tell you, but that has to be the miss of the season. (Other candidates are Asamoah and Toni, with Pizarro responsible for the remainder of the top 20).

While Hertha set their sights on fulfilling defender Josip Simunic's on-pitch promise last week that "We will win the shield for the fans (by winning 8 from their last 12 - apparently that's enough in Germany)" by pulling away from the chasing pack, the teams beneath them are in deadlock. Bayern Munich, 1899 Hoffenheim, Vfl Wolfsburg and HSV Hamburg now all have 42 points, with second-placed Bayern actually having scored and conceded the same number as third-placed Hoffenheim.

Bayern rocketed back up into the reckoning with a 5-1 win over Hannover at the Allianz Arena after going behind yet again at home. Depressingly for Hannover, four of the five goals came from set-pieces as the hosts walked to another 5-star victory, having seemed shaky following a stunning opener from Jiri Stajner that saw the stalwart cut inside Lucio with one touch to leave him flat on his face and curl a wicked shot past the helpless Michael Rensing with his second and stun the home faithful. The Bavarians notched 5 goals for the second time in three games in all competitions but were under pressure having been knocked out of the DFB-Pokal (their FA Cup) in midweek by Bayer Leverkusen. They responded in the best possible way and goals from Daniel Van Buyten, Martin Demichaelis, Hamit Altintop, Miroslav Klose and Lucasz Podolski took them to the number 1 contender spot.

Hoffenheim were held at home by Werder Bremen, who grabbed their second successive 0-0 draw in fortunate circumstances. The reverse fixture between these sides saw 9 goals, 3 'aluminiumtreffer' (shots against the woodwork), a penalty, a red card, a stunning free-kick effort and a 3-goal comeback before Werder eventually ran out 5-4 winners in the game of the season so far. Obviously, the two sides had used up their allowance of goals against one another as not only did the game end goalless but the only element which featured again this time around was the 3 aluminiumtreffer. Boubacar Sanogo, who was only playing against the club whom he left in January due to a growing Hoffenheim injury list that forced coach Ralf Rangwick into playing 3 centre-forwards from the start, managed to claim the worst kind of hat-trick, as he struck the upright on 3 separate occasions during the course of the 90 minutes.

Luckily for him and his side, the man who has been given the job of filling his boots since arriving in Bremen in the summer fared no better. Pizarro endured a miserable afternoon. I counted 7 very presentable opportunities that he contrived to balloon over, drag wide, tamely roll into the arms of the keeper or fail to connect with altogether. The man has scored 11 times in the league this season and scored a brace in the San Siro to knock AC Milan out of Europe two weeks ago, but he's still a useless waste of anything one could care to mention. Werder climb to 10th and will desperately hope that they can get past their old foes Hamburg in their DFB-Pokal semi-final on April 22nd to stand any chance of qualifying for Europe next year.

Edin Dzeko, the acne-ravaged youngster, slammed home his 12th of an ever-more impressive campaign to hand Wolfsburg a 1-0 win over an extremely unfortunate Karlsruhe side at the VW-Arena. Karlsruhe, who stay second from bottom as a result of this narrow defeat, at times dominated proceedings and more than played their part in an entertaining spectacle and a fine game of football, which will have them feeling very hard done by indeed not to have taken at least a point at the ground which has still only been breached once in the league this season, and even then 'die Gastgeber' (the hosts) only spared their guests a single point. Felix Magath's team, having exited from both the UEFA and DFB Cups in the last fortnight, at the hands of PSG and Werder Bremen respectively, can now focus solely on the Bundesliga front, with both Dzeko and Grafite fighting fit, and now look ready for an all-out assault on the top of the table from now until May.

Over 50,000 watched Borussia Mönchengladbach humiliate HSV Hamburg at Gladbach's Borussia Park on Saturday, the 4-1 scoreline painting a fair picture of the control exerted by the league's lowest over their lofty counterparts. The performance was orchestrated by young Marko Marin, as he supplied the assists for goals from Rob Friend, Tobias Levels and Roel Brouwers before rounding off the display with a well-taken penalty at the death. The goal that put Gladbach in front for the second time in the game was particularly memorable, Marin pulling the strings and beating two before unleashing Alexander Baumjohann, who delivered a wonderfully well disguised reverse through ball that Levels forced against the goalkeeper and, as the rebound came back at him, the big defender stumbled, fell and hooked the ball up and over the covering defender on the line from the ground to notch his first of this term.

Martin Jol's decision to place his brother alongside him in the dugout in recent weeks with the modus operandi "watch the game and talk to me about it" (I mean there's getting your brother a job and then there's taking the piss) looks to have backfired as, despite a Mladen Petric strike on the swivel that briefly brought them first-half parity, they were overrun by the irrepressible Marin and his team-mates and looked fatigued and demotivated. That reverse leaves Hamburg at the bottom of the four clubs vying for second spot with an increasing number of fixtures on the horizon due to their impending European commitments. Gladbach's win was not enough to move them up in the rankings but they will take heart in Marin's contribution, as well as their ability to score goals - an element crucial to surviving the drop in any league.

Surely the most improved team in the league this season must be Stuttgart, who continued their unblemished record under Markus Babbel to put away Borussia Dortmund at the Mercedes-Benz Arena by 2 goals to 1. The result was thoroughly merited, the 'forgotten man' Elson putting them in front before the game's two best players, Thomas Hitzlsperger and Mario Gomez, combined for the winner after Nelson Valdez was on-hand to equalise against the run of play for Dortmund. Both Gomez and Hitzlsperger had hit a post before a series of short, sharp exchanges found Hitzlsperger in space 30 yards from goal. He turned and sprayed a pass out to Roberto Hilbert, whose low, first-time ball in was perfectly weighted for Gomez to add an expertly-applied finish with an in-step Yeboah from 12 yards. Gomez, under Babbel, has rediscovered the form that earned him so many admirers, including Arsene Wenger, prior to the European Championships last summer and has now found the net on 20 occasions this season in all competitions. Stuttgart are now just 3 points off the chasing pack in 6th and may be dark horses to make a late dash for a Champions League place at this rate, whereas Dortmund will be content with the stability found under highly-rated young coach Jürgen Klopp and look set to continue steadily laying the foundations from mid-table.

From popular trainers to one under real pressure, Schalke 04 fans produced a banner during their 1-0 home win over FC Köln on Friday night that read "Rutten oder wir" - meaning '(coach Fred) Rutten or us' - and reacted badly to the coach's decision to replace the in-form Vicente Sanchez with Gerald Asamoah with around a quarter of the game to play, although Rutten defended the switch on the basis that Sanchez had played two games in a week having been out for 6 months prior to his reintroduction. You wouldn't have guessed that the home side had won come full-time, as the final whistle was greeted with jeers from all sides of the ground, despite them having witnessed their side comfortably diminish the threat of an industrious yet uninspiring Köln outfit.

At one point, midfielder Mladen Krstaijic was seen gesturing to the crowd in a vain appeal for a positive response to the tidy-looking scoreboard except, had Köln carried out their idea of the late equaliser with which they tentatively toyed, the scoreboard and the rest of the stadium may not have lasted the night. The evening was hostile throughout, the atmosphere poisoned from the get-go right up until a delightful goal had them off their seats for all the right reasons with 28 minutes played. Kevin Kuranyi broke down the left-hand side before slipping a clever ball into the feet of Sanchez, who controlled the ball with his right foot and executed an audacious backheeled cross with his left that looped up and over two defenders to the onrushing Ivan Rakitic. He, in turn, nodded the ball down to Jermaine Jones (Jenas clones) to lash a thumping 20-yard piledriver inside the left-hand upright and send the stands into raptures. Unfortunately, that was as good as it got for the home side, who currently sit in 8th place, 5 points from the European slots. Köln slip one place to 11th.

The final two fixtures that took place on Sunday appeared so unappetising that they put me off my dinner. I recovered to watch the highlights with a sandwich, but as it turned out I should've trusted my original instincts. Bayer Leverkusen came from behind to secure a 1-1 draw against Vfl Bochum through Patrick Helmes' 17th goal of the season from the spot, after they had gone behind to a first-half strike from Chris Dabrowski. Leverkusen lie 7th, Bochum 14th. As for Arminia Bielefeld versus Eintracht Frankfurt...well it was 0-0, let's just say that.