Leverkusen repel late Gladbach onslaught to see out 1-2 away win
Despite Yann Sommer heroically saving two penalties, goals from Andrich and Schick were enough for Die Werkself to come away victorious.
| Florian Wirtz provided another assist in fine midfield display. |
Leverkusen appeared to dominate the early exchanges with Wirtz, Bellarabi, and Frimpong seeing a lot of the ball down the right flank, however Gladbach arguably had the better opportunities to convert. Luca Netz and Laszlo Benes’ pinpoint deliveries from dead ball situations presented several difficult scenarios for the B04 defence in the opening 30 minutes of the half.
While the remaining 15 minutes of the first 45 continued at an intense pace, both teams really failed to carve out any guilt edged chances. The opposite was the case five minutes into the second half when Bellarabi was unnecessarily fouled close to the end line, giving Sascha Stegemann the easy decision of awarding a penalty.
Leverkusen’s top scorer, Schick stepped up to place the ball in the bottom right corner, but Sommer did brilliantly to save the spot kick. However, the resulting corner gave the Swiss keeper no chance moments later when the unmarked Andrich latched onto a Wirtz corner and buried the ball to the back of the net for 0-1.
Hutter turned to Scally and Thuram on 60 minutes with the aim of drawing his side level. Despite the substitutions, Gladbach never really looked like scoring at the time. Die Werkself went a step further with 15 minutes to play by doubling their lead. A freekick whipped in from the left wing by Demirbay brushed off Hincapie on its way to Schick who converted and made amends for his aforementioned penalty miss.
Gladbach did manage to grab a lifeline in the closing stages. Some penalty box chaos afforded Elvedi space from 6-yards out. The Swiss centre-half steadied himself before blasting home into the roof of the net with what was a true defender’s finish making it 1-2.
A second penalty of the night came when the brilliant Wirtz jinked his way into the Gladbach box only to be felled by substitute Jordan Beyer. Demirbay opted to take the spot kick this time around, but his effort had a similar fate to Schick’s earlier attempt with the magnificent Sommer foiling the away side once more from the spot.
Replacement Amine Adli should have put the game to bed in added time. The fresh legged Frenchman failed on two occasions to beat Sommer between the post. Nonetheless Seoane’s team held on to win 1-2, bag all three points, and rise to 3rd in the Bundesliga table
