Player Focus: Martin Harnik (Stuttgart)

VfB Stuttgart will be content with their season at this stage with a place in the UEFA Europa League well within their reach, if they can maintain their excellent current form in the Bundesliga.

Stuttgart currently sit in eighth place after 24 matches but with a gap of just four points separating them and the European positions, their full focus will be on nudging Werder Bremen and Bayer Leverkusen out of the coveted spots.

Die Roten were boosted at the start of the season with the completion of the £62m expansion of the Mercedes-Benz Arena which took over two years to complete, bringing the capacity up to over 60,000.

Under the throbbing sun over Badem-Wuttenburg, Stuttgart kicked off the 49th Bundesliga season in smashing form with a comfortable 3-0 home win over Schalke 04 with three of their four attackers on the scoresheet – Cacau, Martin Harnik and Shinji Okazaki.

It would be the perfect start for Bruno Labbadia’s men and for their Austrian attacking-midfielder Harnik, who would go on to enjoy a fantastic season for Stuttgart. The 24-year-old has been in quite sensational form for a midfield player with 14 goals in 23 starts this campaign.

Despite not taking much recognition, Harnik has been one of the best performers in the league this season with another four assists to his name, which has pushed his overall WhoScored rating to 7.14 and his WhoScored rating from home league matches alone to 7.35.

Harnik tends to save his best performances for the Mercedes-Benz Arena, with 9 of his 12 league goals and 2 of the 4 assists coming in Stuttgart’s home matches. The Austrian has hit 23 of his 45 shots at home and performed 17 of his 36 dribbles in home territory.

Obviously, Harnik’s attacking skills are the best part of his game, in particular, his excellent finishing ability. On average, he makes 1.9 shots per match from a total of 45 this season, giving him a shot-to-goal conversion rate of 31.1%. As a wide-player, Harnik gives the Stuttgart team plenty of balance and possesses impressive dribbling skills, with the player completing an average of 1.5 dribbles per game.

One of the most impressive aspects about Stuttgart’s play is their ability to retain possession of the ball, though this is an area in which Harnik could improve, with a meagre pass accuracy of 69.3% from 576 attempts (24 passes per game). The overall team’s passing ability is very under-rated with central-defenders Serdar Tasci and Maza reaching over 84% pass completion.

In midfield, Zdravko Kuzmanovic and William Kvist have hit over 84% also and even their reserve central-defender Georg Niedermeier has made 83.9% successful passes this season.

However, Harnik’s defensive game is far from weak and his statistics compare well with other attacking players at Stuttgart. The midfielder completes, on average, 1.6 tackles per game and 1.7 interceptions per match.

The Stuttgart number seven has won 4 man of the match awards this season and has been in sensational form in recent weeks with seven goals in his last four league matches. If you take just the scores between week 20 and week 24, Stuttgart would find themselves in second-position, behind Borussia Dortmund, with an awesome goal tally of 17 scored in that time.

Four weeks ago, he smashed in a hat-trick as he put an end to the Michael Skibbe reign at Hertha Berlin in a 5-0 home victory for Stuttgart and reached a WhoScored rating of 10 for that particular match. Labbadia’s men came back to earth with a pounding as Hannover picked up a 4-2 win over Stuttgart, as Harnik scored one of the two goals for the away side.

In the Swabian derby, Harnik won another man of the match award and reached another 10 WhoScored rating for his performance, which included two goals and an assist in their 4-1 win over their nearest rivals. Freiburg fans will hate the sight of Harnik after he scored two goals in the reverse fixture earlier in the season at the Mage Solar Stadion.

Most recently, this weekend, Harnik was in excellent form as Stuttgart blew Hamburg SV away with a 4-0 victory at the Volkspark. The 24-year-old scored the fourth goal in a ruthless away performance and hit a rating of 8.7 for WhoScored.

Traditionally, Stuttgart have flourished in the ruckrunde (second half of the season) after struggling in the hinrunde. Their recent form suggests that this season could follow a very similar pattern and it isn’t out of their reach to qualify for Europe at the end of the campaign.