Last season, Bayer Leverkusen blew away the competition in the Bundesliga, as they convincingly won their first Meisterschale, finishing the campaign unbeaten.
In the process, Die Werkself were able to boast the best defensive record in the league, conceding just 24 goals, an average of 0.7 goals a game.
However, this season, Xabi Alonso’s side have already tasted defeat at the hands of RB Leipzig, while only three sides—Augsburg, Hoffenheim, and Holstein Kiel—have conceded more goals than the reigning champions.
Having shipped three goals to VfL Wolfsburg on Sunday afternoon for the second time this season, Granit Xhaka had some choice words for his side’s performance, and in a recent interview with Sky Germany, the midfielder emphasised the importance of highlighting their issues:
“The most important thing is that we took the three points, but there are just some important things that need to be clearly addressed and that are simply not good enough at the moment. We are conceding too many goals. If you look at how many goals we conceded in the whole of last season and compare that with the current season, you can see that we have already conceded half of the goals we conceded in the previous season. That cannot happen to us so easily, and that is what I was specifically talking about. We know that we have to improve in this area, and hopefully, we will soon.”
With Leverkusen currently conceding an average of 2.25 goals a game, there are clear problems affecting Alonso’s side, and Xhaka looked to address why this is the case:
“We are currently conceding goals too easily and are not managing to bring the basics against the ball onto the pitch and take that one step further than the opponent. At this level, you are immediately punished for that, and we saw that against Wolfsburg, but also in the home game against Leipzig. Two home games and six goals conceded? That simply cannot happen to us, and we have to work on that.”
Despite this, the former Arsenal midfielder is confident that Alonso will be able to turn around Die Werkself’s defensive vulnerabilities:
“Xabi obviously sees what we do well and what we do less well. He analyses the training sessions and games. If anyone knows what needs to be improved, it’s the coach. It’s good that we players also realise that we’re not quite where we were last season. But I think that’s completely normal. We’re only at the beginning of the season, and we still have a lot of games ahead of us. Of course, the workload and pressure are completely different from last season, but I’m convinced that we’ll continue to win our games if we’re better defensively. Everyone knows that our attack can score two or three goals per game.”
With a trip to Bayern Munich awaiting Leverkusen on Saturday evening, there will undoubtedly be pressure on the reigning champions to draw level on points with Der Rekordmeister, who are enjoying a perfect start to life under Vincent Kompany.
GGFN | Will Shopland
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