The search for consistency continues: Bayern’s victors from Borussia Mönchengladbach have painfully hit the ground running a week after their surprise coup. Coach Daniel Farke’s team conceded the next bitter setback abroad with the 0:4 (0:1) at FSV Mainz 05 and continue to stumble through the no man’s land of the Bundesliga.
“We have to be self-critical, we’ve made too many mistakes,” said Farke on “DAZN”. Christoph Kramer said: “I’m pissed, but I have to say that it didn’t feel so bad at times. What killed us is that we came out of the break like this. It won’t be any easier at 0:2.”
Once again, the completely disappointing Gladbachers missed the first two wins in a row this season – more than gray mediocrity doesn’t seem possible at the moment. A decent performance and goals from Jae-Sung Lee (25′), Marcus Ingvartsen (49′), Ludovic Ajorque (72′) and Nelson Weiper (90’+3′) were enough for Mainz coach Bo Svensson’s third win in a row . The FSV jumped to seventh place at least for one night, for the 17-year-old Weiper it was the first Bundesliga goal ever.
Farke trusted exactly the starting XI that had beaten Munich (3-2) last matchday – and made it clear that his team was “willing to add points”. The Gladbach coach demanded willingness to run, a lot of intensity and strength in duels – like against Bayern.
Gladbach only with little resistance
But there was little to see from the momentum of the previous week with Borussia. The team around the recently strong national player Jonas Hofmann made many bad passes, wobbled defensively – and remained harmless except for a shot by Manu Kone (18th). Robin Zentner, who was in the FSV goal for the first time this year, remained unemployed.
Almost out of nowhere, the guests fell behind. The weak Nico Elvedi frittered away the ball, Danny da Costa sent a precise cross to Lee, who headed it in. In addition, Gladbach goalkeeper Jonas Omlin injured his thigh shortly afterwards, Tobias Sippel replaced him – and was lucky that Ajorque (34th) did not score the second goal.
Borussia also got off to a bad start after the break. At Ajorque’s conclusion, Sippel parried, but Ingvartsen completed the sweep coldly. Gladbach had good opportunities through Hannes Wolf (52nd) and Marcus Thuram (69th), but Zentner was there twice. Otherwise, there was no big uproar among the guests. Mainz countered again and again, Ajorque followed up with his first goal in the FSV jersey.