Striker-light Leverkusen lifted as Alonso manages way through mini-crisis | Andy Brassell

Bundesliga champions fend off a late St Pauli scare for third straight league win as injuries and schedule bite

Bayer Leverkusen had been here before so many times that deja vu doesn’t really cover it. Swarming over inferior opponents with a swagger and a nonchalance that few can match, only to be left sweating in the final stages over whether the reward would arrive. This time, though, they had the answer. Just about.

We always knew that Leverkusen’s 2024-25 season would be different; the morning after the night before, and what a night it had been. A below-elite stature of club might be expected to have its team dismantled after the sort of unprecedented season of success that they’d had but Leverkusen were about as future-proofed against that as it was possible to be – particularly after Xabi Alonso planted a flag by declaring that he would stay.

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