With just over a month of the Bundesliga season to go, nothing is even close to being decided, and today was no help either, with the races for the title, Europe and even survival still wide open.
The results:
Heidenheim 0-1 Bayer Leverkusen
Bochum 0-4 Stuttgart
Freiburg 1-4 Borussia Dortmund
RB Leipzig 3-1 Hoffenheim
Mainz 1-1 Holstien Kiel
Here is what we learnt:
Bayer Leverkusen produce one of their worst performances of the season, but somehow still win…
After Bayern Munich’s 3-1 win against Augsburg last night, the pressure was on Leverkusen to close the gap back down to six points. For 90 minutes, it looked as if Leverkusen were handing Bayern the eight-point lead as they were horrible, like, really horrible.
If you thought the performance against Arminia Bielefeld in midweek was bad, this was worse.
Relegation fighting Heidenheim outplayed Leverkusen throughout: 1.31xg vs 0.36, 10 shots vs 6, 2 big chances vs 0.
Leverkusen were on the ropes for the entirety of the game. They only managed two shots on target, after the 85th minute, with one of them being the goal, which was scored by Emiliano Buendia. The Argentine has struggled massively on his loan and should have been able to take the burden off of Florian Wirtz, but hasn’t. While Jonas Hofmann, who has also been struggling, provided the assist. Luckily, Wirtz may be back next week; Leverkusen desperately need him.
What is clear is that this iteration of Leverkusen has run its course. If they win the title, great, but fresh legs need to be brought in in the summer. They need to find a way to actually look like a title-challenging football team without Wirtz.
Luckily, somehow?, the Bundesliga title race is still on.
Dortmund should do everything to keep Carney Chukwuemeka
After an injury hit the first couple of months in Germany, Chukwuemeka made his first start for Dortmund and shined. Not only did he score his first goal for the club with an effort from just outside the box, but he also provided the hockey assist (yeah I’m using this as a justification), for Serhou Guirassy’s goal, as his pass cut through the Freiburg defence into the path of Julian Brandt who assisted the returning Guinean.
The England youth international gives Dortmund an added boost of energy in the midfield, which they have been lacking for a while. In his cameos before his start, he produced promising performances. If he can maintain this level, he would be a great addition to the Dortmund squad going forward.
Dortmund are also gaining momentum with a big game against Bayern next week, where a win may through a spanner in the works for the title race, but it would help Dortmund take another leap towards European football.
(We all know what is going to happen here now, it’s a game against Bayern where it means something for Dortmund – 3-0 Bayern.)
Stuttgart and Leipzig stake their claims for European football:
After Stuttgart kept the integrity of the DFB-Pokal alive, and Leipzig were knocked out of the Pokal, both put in performances that kept their chances of European football alive.
Qualifying for the final of the Pokal has given new life to Stuttgart. Against Bochum, they were lethal in attack, with Ermedin ...
