Status: October 2nd, 2021 8:23 pm
After the Champions League home bankruptcy against Bruges, Leipzig coach Jesse Marsch demanded a reaction. His team delivered them in the Bundesliga 3-0 (0-0) on Saturday evening (02.10.2021) against Bochum, albeit with a very long run-up.
After half an hour, a look at the goal scoring ratio showed the balance of power between the runner-up and the promoted team pretty clearly: RB had made nine attempts, VfL a single one.
Leipzig’s problems lie deeper
But with all efforts, the game also revealed that the problems of Leipzig are deeper and that it is not only lacking in the areas of commitment and the will to win. It was particularly noticeable that there was a lack of interaction: sometimes the hosts were too stubborn, sometimes too cumbersome and then again and again without the necessary precision.
Nkunku ignores Poulsen
A good example of the final misery that had dragged through the season so far, with the exception of the 6-0 win against Hertha BSC, was the 29th minute. Christopher Nkunku, actually the strongest in form in Leipzig in recent weeks, approached Manuel Riemann alone, and then only had to lay across to Yussuf Poulsen, who had run along with him, in front of the goal.
But Nkunku really wanted to make the goal himself – and pushed the ball into the arms of the Bochum goalkeeper. Poulsen was then rightly angry – and coach Jesse Marsch on the sidelines stunned. Before that, the Bochum team had been extremely lucky twice.
After five minutes Herbert Bockhorn hit his opponent in a duel with Poulsen with an extended leg on the foot. Referee Robert Hartmann consequently gave a penalty, but then revised the decision after the intervention of the Cologne cellar, but incomprehensibly again. In the 13th minute Emil Forsberg failed with a remarkable shot on the crossbar.
André Silva brings the turning point
In the second round, the Bochumers, who had been much too fearful up until then, got a little more pressure, and Leipzig also occupied themselves in their own half. After an hour, march began to intervene decisively in the game.
First, the RB coach, who had already been questioned by some supporters, switched to a back four, then in the 69th minute he brought the previously mysteriously hapless André Silva into the game. It was the winning action. Seconds after being substituted on, the Portuguese headed a corner to take the lead. Then Silva played perfectly for Nkunku in the 73rd minute, who carefully lifted the ball over Riemann to make it 2-0 into the goal.
Bochum’s resistance broken
This broke the resistance of the Bochumers, who had fought bravely until then. In the 79th minute Nkunku refined again – again with an ingenious lifter – the ten best minutes of the season of the Leipzig with the 3-0. In the end, there was a result that sounds like the end of RB’s opening crisis. For an hour it hadn’t looked like it at all.
RB Leipzig will now play on Saturday (October 16, 2021, 3:30 p.m.) after the international break in the new arena at SC Freiburg. Of the VfL Bochum meets at the same time in the duel of the climbers on Greuther Fürth.
Source: sportschau.de