Werder Bremen opened matchday 20 of the Bundesliga with a 1-0 win against Mainz. On Saturday afternoon, Bayern Munich beat Holstein Kiel 4-3, for the final game of Mike Tullburg Borussia Dortmund beat 2-1 Heidenheim, Borussia Mönchengladbach beat VfB Stuttgart 2-1, St Pauli vs Augsburg ended in a 1-1 draw and Freiburg beat Bochum 1-0.
Here are three things we learnt:
The race for European places gets even tighter:
Wins for Gladbach and Dortmund now mean the gap between 10th and fourth is only three points. It is anyone’s guess as to who could possibly make it into any of the European places this season.
Gladbach continues on an upward trend thanks to goals from Nathan Ngoumou and Tim Kleindienst. The Frenchman, despite links to a departure this month, could be a good asset for Gladbach as he adds much-needed pace, which Die Fohlen greatly lacks in their attack, while Tim Kleindiesnt continues to make his case for the signing of the season. A return to any European will be a big step in the right direction after several years in the Bundesliga wilderness. Dortmund will be hoping that the arrival of Niko Kovac as head coach will help the team turn a corner and they will actually look convincing as a team once again (see below).
Elsewhere, after the permanent signing of Xavi Simons, Leipzig will also hope that they can qualify for the Champions League and increase their chances of keeping him beyond this season. While Stuttgart are just in an odd place at the moment, they lack consistency but now that they are out of Europe they have a chance to build some sort of consistency, first with a DFB Pokal tie against Augsburg in midweek.
What is clear is that there will likely be either some big surprise inclusions in the German delegation for European competition next season and some regulars will miss out or it will be the same teams as always.
Bayern Munich lack ruthlessness:
Within 55 minutes it looked as if Bayern were going to comfortably beat Kiel at the Allianz Arena as they led the visitors 4-0. However, Kiel were able to slowly mount an unlikely comeback to make it 4-3 but their comeback was left too late and they were not able to salvage a point.
What this showed is after looking like they knew how to kill games off against Freiburg next week, they seemed to forget all that today. Bayern are lacking ruthlessness in their game management of knowing when to slow play down and allow the game to run its course. This was best seen after Kiel had scored their third and were trying for a fourth, Bayern immediately tried to score a fifth instead of running the ball to the corner.
Bayern also lack this ruthlessness in front of goal. They once again could have scored a boatload of goals, if it were not for Kiel keeper Timon Weiner but they don’t have attackers who are cold-blooded in how they play, they constantly feel the need to look for the easy chance to score, whether that be a cutback, etc. Instead, they have Harry Kane.
If Bayern cannot find this trait, the fact that they allowed Kiel to score three against them at home should be a warning sign that against better teams the damage could be a lot worse.
Borussia Dortmund shows Niko Kovac what is in store for him:
For the first time in a while, Dortmund won a game somewhat convincingly. Granted, the win was against a struggling Heidenheim side and they conceded a goal straight from kick-off, but there were positives to take away from the game.
They created plenty of decent chances and were strong defensively. The performance was a lot better than whatever they produced against Bremen last weekend and against Shakhtar Donestk in midweek (Cue calls for Mike Tullburg to be made manager when Kovac is eventually fired in the summer).
When Kovac takes over tomorrow, the aim will probably try to play a similar style to how he won the DFB Pokal with Eintracht Frankfurt, which is a strong defensive side who are very good on the counter, this would be possible with Dortmund as they have the right personnel to be lethal on the counter. If Kovac can make Dortmund a difficult side to break down and beat (something no one has done for a while), that will be a step in the right direction and at least one of the many problems at the Signal Iduna Park would be solved.
GGFN | Jack Meenan
