'Let's play Kagawa on the wing to cross the ball to Fellaini' - David Moyes 13/14

Playing Kagawa on the wing was actually a masterstroke by Fungus before Moyes ever thought of it. Was blindingly obvious that he'd be a failure in a 4-4-2 too

Kagawa is such an awesome player.

15 days later
Gunner89 wrote:

Mkhitaryan is an excellent player. He's a pacy player wide who really plays incisive passes.

Can play anywhere behind the forward.

Some other Bundesliga players impressing me-

Dahoud- Xhaka's partner. Great decision making and technical ability.
Julian Brandt- Awesome touch and looks like he's adding goals to his game.
Kramaric- For a forward he's got really good technique. Don't know why Leicester haven't given him a chance because he's been sensational for Hoffenheim. Leicester have got a good set of young players in him, Gray and Chilwell.
Thorgan Hazard- Plays quite a bit like his brother. Needs to add more goals. Gets a fair few assists.

Mentioned Brandt here. He's now scored in 5 league consecutive league games and has single handedly got Leverkusen to touching distance of assured CL football. For a team with a modest budget they have a fair few good players- Leno, Chicharito, Brandt, Bender, Kramer, Calhanoglu, Bellarabi and Kiessling.

They don't really have a modest budget, at least not compared to other Bundesliga teams. They spend usually pretty sensibly but they are bankrolled as well.

They have far less money than Bayern, Dortmund, Wolfsburg and Schalke.

Bayern obviously. Wolfsburg yes although even they have to return parts of their money to VW as their DoF announced this season. Dortmund have overtaken them just in recent years. Schalke are the bigger club but they don't have more money than Leverkusen.

Schalke don't have as much money as Leverkusen? Explain that part please.

I only ask because this time last year Dortmund and Schalke were the only two German clubs aside from Bayern to be in the money league.

Deloitte show Schalke as being ranked 13th in the world for football incoming.

jones wrote:

Bayern obviously. Wolfsburg yes although even they have to return parts of their money to VW as their DoF announced this season. Dortmund have overtaken them just in recent years. Schalke are the bigger club but they don't have more money than Leverkusen.

You don't really follow the Bundesliga do you?

Schalke have much more money and have invested much more.

Oh, oh. Telling Jonesy there is a league he doesn't really follow cannot end well! 🙂

Especially when it's his home League and he actually knows more about it than most of us put together!

Ricky1985 wrote:

Especially when it's his home League and he actually knows more about it than most of us put together!

Yeah, I trust his insights on Bundesliga more than those ignorant rumours.

(1st and 2nd go up directly, 3rd place enters Relegation Playoffs)

Freiburg 66 Points +34 goals
Leipzig 63 +21
Nurnberg 59 +27

Leipzig moved from 1st to 2nd in the last few games, although I'm still certain they'll be in the Bundeliga come next season. scenarios are pretty straightforward. Freiburg need another win, while RB needs 2 then they’ll both go up no matter what Nurnberg do in their last 3 games.

That top talent of yours seems to be on the bench for a 2nd division team.

Brandt with another yesterday. 6 league games in a row he's scored now.

First player in more than 35 years to do this in the Bundesliga.

Gunner89 wrote:

That top talent of yours seems to be on the bench for a 2nd division team.

I know. If it’s one thing the Bundesliga 2 is not short of, it’s young talent.

Leipzig just so happen to play with 1 main striker, and they have 2 good youngsters up front, Selke and Poulsen.

Gunner89 wrote:

Brandt with another yesterday. 6 league games in a row he's scored now.

First player in more than 35 years to do this in the Bundesliga.

First U20 player.

Aubameyang has already broken the overall Bundesliga record by scored in 8 consecutive games this season.

Aubameyang on 8? Gerd Muller has 16.

Muller - 16
Vardy - 11
Messi - 21

Messi is an animal

Special feeling about Passlack. Difficult to explain.

Four players I'll be watching out for come next season: Selke, Poulsen, Passlack and Pulisic.

4 days later

RB Leipzig have a new coach for next season. Current Ingolstadt coach Hasenhüttl signed a 3-year deal with Leipzig.

I'd bet good money on him not being German. Nobody in Germany likes RB Leipzig

Eintracht made a huge step towards staying up after winning 1-0 vs Dortmund, extremely nervy match. Almost relieved Bayern won their away match today to be crowned champions because otherwise our win today would've meant we have effectively handed Bayern the title today. Doesn't matter how irrelevant that'd have been in the bigger picture, it would've tainted a huge win.

Borussia Mönchengladbach qualified for the Champions League today too. Watched a little bit of the second half to have another look at Xhaka. Was entertaining and Xhaka was good.

jones wrote:

Eintracht made a huge step towards staying up after winning 1-0 vs Dortmund, extremely nervy match. Almost relieved Bayern won their away match today to be crowned champions because otherwise our win today would've meant we have effectively handed Bayern the title today. Doesn't matter how irrelevant that'd have been in the bigger picture, it would've tainted a huge win.

Just realised that also meant next match against Werder Bremen is effectively a play-off to avoid the playoffs.

Hoffenheim's new young manager is incredible. Look dead and buried few weeks ago but they are now safe. Stuttgart meanwhile, looked safe for much of the season and now is relegated.

Yeah, draw is enough to stay safe. Hoffenheim's manager seems special indeed, heard rave reviews about him even before he was appointed and he has duly delivered. Don't know the stats I'd be surprised if he wasn't the youngest manager in any top league ever.

Stuttgart are such a strange club, they always go on these extreme runs of form ever since I started watching football and since then the whole staff and management have been replaced, there must be some reason for it. They started the season in awful form, changed managers and suddenly looked like a team that could reach the EL or even CL spots, then they petered out and now are relegated.

The Bundesliga at the top is boring and moves like Hummels destroy interest in it even with people like me who don't like Dortmund much either but the relegation battles each season are pretty insane.

I used to like Stuttgart back in the days where they had Cacau and Hleb, tore United apart in the UCL. It wasn't long ago they won the Bundesliga and is now relegated. Same goes for Werder. Schaaf brand of attacking football was really good to watch in the past.

Schaaf was Frankfurt's manager in 14/15, real shame he was hounded out of the club as I have a lot of time for his ultra attacking style. Frankfurt conceded a large number of goals finishing midtable but only Bayern VW and Leverkusen scored more goals, also Alex Meier became domestic top scorer at 32 years old under him.

He's vastly underappreciated in Germany and even more so internationally, no mean feat to win the double with a club like Bremen and to keep them in the CL for years. Not flashy enough for the big stage I suppose but it would be interesting to see him at a club like ours. At the end of the season we'd have a GD of something like 120:70

RB Leipzig have officially been promoted to the Bundesliga.

So next season your posts about them will actually belong in the Bundesliga thread then... 🙂

The hate online for Leipzig is hilarious to read. I think they might even be hated more than =bayern 😆

A hell of a lot more than Bayern.

Dortmund fans have already made t-shirts and banners showing their hatred for Leipzig.

What's the reason for this hatred?

Okay so where to I start... You can ask any Bundesliga fan to share a few words about the RB Leipzig football club and you will get these same words as a response: “Nein zu RB,” meaning No to RB.

Almost all of Germany has a dislike for RB Leipzig, but what is the reason?

Just two words: RED BULL.

In Germany members own football clubs, not businesses. But RB seem to be the exception to that rule, and many people dislike that.

All fans from all clubs want to keep it that way, they way to keep the tradition.

The German FA seems to have turned a blind eye to RB Leipzig, perhaps in part because the company is investing so heavily in the old East Germany where big football clubs are so scarce. Leipzig alone have somewhere betwee 480-500,000 people but no big football club to follow.

In Germany there is a 50+1 rule, designed to prevent investors from gaining majority rights in a club registered as a stock company. Yet Bayern can have corporations buy 10% a piece in shares, divide stocks, and claim they are obeying 50+1 while takng no less money than RB puts into Leipzig.? Hypocrisy somewhat.

Leverkusen are owned by Bayer and VFL Wolfsburg are owned by Volkswagen.

Dietmar Hopp who is worth 6 billion has been investing heavily in Hoffenheim since early 2000's and has moved from from the lowest division in football to the Bundesliga.

Union Berlin, Erzgebirge Aue, and 1860 Munich (all tradition-laden clubs) refused to play friendlies against RB Leipzig two summers ago. That's how passionate they are.

So yeah, the hate is real and it's strong and it won't go away.