Four weeks ago Werder Bremen had said goodbye to the relegation battle, at least unofficially. After a 2-0 win in Bielefeld, their lead on the relegation rank was eleven points. A decent cushion.
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Since then, however, Werder has lost four Bundesliga games in a row. The low point followed at the weekend when they had no chance in the 1: 4 against RB Leipzig. The lead on rank 16 melted to four points, and a renewed participation in the relegation is suddenly a very possible scenario again. In the past season Bremen was only able to hold the league after two additional games, the success at that time against Heidenheim was extremely close.
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It is their own fault that Bremen have to look down again. The team has not developed further in terms of football in the past few weeks. Coach Florian Kohfeldt is still looking for his best team – and is getting bogged down more and more often.
Werder bricked themselves to victories
Coach Kohfeldt changed his approach compared to last season. In the preseason he had tried to give his team an offensive style of play. That went wrong. This season he relied on pragmatism right from the start. The others were allowed to play nicely. Werder should collect points. Just no shivering season.
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Of all Bundesliga clubs, the club has the third lowest ball possession value, and they are fourth from bottom when it comes to passing rates. In many games, the Bremen team was far behind, leaving the opponent in possession of the ball. Hardly any team acts so passively.
The worse Bremen’s opponents were, the better this strategy worked. They won five of their seven wins this season against teams that are currently behind them in the table. There was another victory against the also weak Augsburg team. Only in the 2-1 win against Eintracht Frankfurt were they able to defeat an individually superior opponent.
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Kohfeldt is looking for the right cast
This approach is now falling on Werder’s feet. In no part of the team is the team solid enough to compete against stronger opponents. The team is weakening, especially in football. Even if they defend compactly, they lose too many one-on-one duels, their own counterattacks almost always peter out.
Kohfeldt has another problem: At the moment there is no first team that looks well-rehearsed. Against RB Leipzig, the coach switched to many positions again. He justified this with the cup game against Jahn Regensburg during the week, saying that some players lacked the strength for 90 minutes.
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But Kohfeldt’s new variant did not help. On the contrary: The attempt to throw two new attackers, Davie Selke and Eren Dinkci, on the field failed. Kohfeldt said after the game that they should approach the opponent in a physical way, his team should press early. There wasn’t much of that to be seen in the game. Leipzig easily collected 72 percent possession in the first half, and Bremen flattered the 3-0 half-time result.
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Julian Nagelsmann’s Leipziger also revealed the Bremen’s major weak point. In the central midfield, Kohfeldt had a double six made up of Christian Groß and Jean-Manuel Mbom. Leipzig’s Kevin Kampl, Marcel Sabitzer, Dani Olmo and Christopher Nkunku played Werder’s midfield dizzy. It was to be expected that Werder would lose to Leipzig. The how should Bremen get: At 1: 4, the opponent made them look like a second division.
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The competition is catching up
The upcoming opponents do not give Bremen much hope. Until the end of the season, the team almost only meets opponents who are in front of them in the table (including BVB, Union Berlin, Bayer Leverkusen, Gladbach). Mainz are the only outstanding opponents behind Bremen in the table. Alone: Mainz are currently in strong form, the 3-2 win against Cologne was the fifth game in a row without a defeat. Arminia Bielefeld (1-0 against Freiburg) and Hertha BSC (2-2 against Mönchengladbach) also scored points at the weekend.
But Werder is not alone. FC Augsburg had also felt safe. The parallels to Werder are striking: The Augsburgers also relied on passive football for a long time, they collected their points with a lot of compactness and a little luck. At the same time, there was no further development in football. In Augsburg it went so far that they couldn’t play more than one and a half goal chances against the weakest defensive in the league. The 0-1 defeat at Schalke was the result. However, they are still six points behind in 16th place.
The relegation battle has broadened. The strong form Bielefeld, Herthan and Mainz can be trusted to close the gap to Augsburg, Hoffenheim (plays in the evening against Bayer Leverkusen; 8:30 p.m.) and Werder. Cologne is trying to achieve a short-term effect with a coach separation.
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