Bochum End Gladbach’s Purple Patch

In a week where I have won­dered about the poten­tial of defen­sive creep within the Bun­desliga, a dire 1–0 match took place between Borus­sia Monchenglad­bach and Bochum at Borus­sia Park tonight.

In the first half, Glad­bach came out fir­ing on all cylin­ders and spent the first 20 min­utes
play­ing Bochum off the pitch. Their offen­sive flair, espe­cially via Boumjo­hann, which had been so per­va­sive over the past few matches was there with aplomb in front of the home fans at the start. But their one fail­ure was in fin­ish­ing. While Friend, Mat­mour and Bouw­ers all came close early, Glad­bach squan­dered all of their early chances and left them­selves sus­cep­ti­ble to the obvious.

Hav­ing been toyed with by Marin and Boumjo­hann for 20 min­utes, it was the vis­i­tors who hit on the counter to take the lead in the 29th. Klimowitz picked up a ghost­ing Grote on the counter and the mid­fielder blasted an unstop­pable shot from out­side the box as Paul Stal­teri failed to close down.

Bochum then set out the stalls, and ground out their first away vic­tory of the sea­son. They now sit three points clear of the drop zone.

And it was as defen­sive as it sounds on Bochum’s part. They took one shot, which wasn’t even on tar­get in the sec­ond half. That’s not to say they didn’t defend well, as they absorbed all kinds of pres­sure as Glad­bach had 19 shots, 62% pos­ses­sion and run of the mid­field. It was in the final third where Bochum was just too vera­cious to allow Glad­bach any solid looks at goal. And they used their phys­i­cal supe­ri­or­ity to pun­ish the smaller home side. And despite a series of tac­ti­cal changes by Hans Mey­ers, Bochum wasn’t to be bro­ken down on the night.

Glad­bach see their string of good results end, find them­selves entrenched in the rel­e­ga­tion zone and will now be with­out Marin next week as he picked up his 5th yel­low of the sea­son in the 55th.

Tagged as: Dennis Grote, Hans Myers, Marko Marin