Mirko Slomka: Sacked by Hamburg

Hamburg have announced they have relieved Mirko Slomka of his duties as head coach with immediate effect and named Josef Zinnbauer as his successor.

The Bundesliga strugglers have suffered a difficult start to the new season, collecting just one point from their opening three matches to sit bottom of the table on goal difference.

Hamburg director Dietmar Beiersdorf announced the news on Twitter, also stating Slomka's backroom staff would follow him out of the door.

"Official PK Beiersdorf announced that Mirko Slomka is relieved of his duties as a coach," a post on the club's official feed read.

"In addition, assistant coaches (Nestor) El Maestro and (Zlatan) Bajramovic, goalkeeping coach (Ronny) Teuber and conditioning coach (Nikola) Vidovic will no longer remain at the club."

Slomka, 47, who had been in charge at the Imtech Arena since mid-February, had started his reign with a 3-0 victory over Borussia Dortmund, but five defeats at the end of last season saw Hamburg finish 16th and in a relegation-promotion play-off against Greuther Furth, which they edged with an away goal from a second-leg 1-1 draw.

The club released another series of tweets, which stated Zinnbauer would take charge of the first team with Patrick Rahmen named his assistant.

"Beiersdorf announced that until further notice U23 coach Joe Zinnbauer will train the first team," they added.

"As assistant coach Patrick Rahmen will support the side. The goalkeeper coach is Stefan Wachter, the athletic trainer is Carsten Schunemann."

Zinnbauer, who was coach of the Red Shorts' Under-23 side that have won all eight of their games so far this season, will conduct his first training session with the first team on Wednesday.

Beiersdorf told his club's official website: "Joe has been coaching and getting results with our under-23 side (eight wins from eight games) in the Regionalliga Nord, which is proof that he can lead a team and help them gel together quickly as a team.

"He is a very open, outward-looking guy who can lead the club both emotionally and - on the other side - structurally with some excellent work.

"We are confident that he can ignite a new spark within the squad and will be a strong leader as he prepares for the tasks ahead. In doing so, we will support them as a club by all means."