11th matchday
Efficient concord depends on Borussia with weakened substitutes
Jesper Lindström (l) was accurate in Frankfurt’s win against Gladbach. photo
© Marius Becker/dpa
Efficient, clever and relentless: Eintracht Frankfurt made short work of the Gladbachers, who were plagued by numerous injuries.
Oliver Glasner was satisfied with almost everything. After Eintracht Frankfurt’s 3-1 win at Borussia Mönchengladbach, the Hessian coach found only one point of criticism.
“We unnecessarily let Gladbach come back into the game a bit,” said the Austrian on Sky on Saturday evening about Borussia’s goal by Marcus Thuram (72nd minute). There was nothing more to complain about for the 48-year-old. Because after goals from Jesper Lindström (6th minute/45th) and Éric Dina Ebimbe (29th), Eintracht moved up to a Champions League position. “We played really well today, it was a deserved win,” said Glasner.
The mood among the injury-plagued Gladbachers was logically very different. “I think we’ve already invited them to a certain extent,” said midfielder Julian Weigl. “They coldly exploited all our mistakes.”
With 20 points from eleven games, the SGE, which is already challenged again in the Champions League against Olympique Marseille on Wednesday, is fourth in the table. Thanks to the sovereign victory, the Hessians also pulled away from Borussia (16), who initially slipped into midfield. “What killed us a bit was losing the ball,” said Gladbach coach Daniel Farke.
Gladbach without six regular players
Without six injured regular players, coach Daniel Farke’s team struggled and initially kept the game open, but were extremely unlucky. In addition, midfielder Manu Koné received his fifth yellow card and is now suspended at leaders Union Berlin next weekend. The only ray of hope from Gladbach’s point of view is Thuram, who scored in the fourth game in a row.
On the other hand, the defensive becomes a problem again. The Gladbachers have conceded a total of twelve goals in four games in October. In the first seven Bundesliga games there were only five. Already in the last season under coach Adi Hütter, the defensive behavior was inadequate.
Four days after the bitter end of the cup at second division SV Darmstadt, the offensive didn’t put enough pressure on the Eintracht defense, which also seemed anything but secure. In addition, national keeper Kevin Trapp held brilliantly a few times. His Gladbach colleague Tobias Sippel looked less happy. With the first dangerous Frankfurt attack, the ball tumbled past him into the goal. Even then, Sippel did not come close to the class of regular keeper Yann Sommer, who tore a ligament in his ankle during the 1-2 draw in Darmstadt on Tuesday.
For Sippel it was the first Bundesliga game since the 1-1 draw on matchday 33 of last season. At that time it was also against Eintracht in Frankfurt.
Decision after changing sides
Even before the break, the Hessians increased the lead after a corner with Ebimbe’s header and another counterattack by Lindström. Ebimbes 2-0 was already Frankfurt’s ninth goal of the season after a standard situation.
Even after the change, Gladbach found it difficult to attack the clever guests. In addition, they repeatedly ran into dangerous counterattacks, which Frankfurt no longer consistently played out. Too late, Thuram used one of Frankfurt’s existing inaccuracies in defense to connect.
Then the game was interrupted for a few minutes for a strange reason. A camera cable had fallen onto the lawn. This made for a long stoppage time of over nine minutes.
11th match day Bundesliga table