Five Things We've Learnt From The Bundesliga's Return
- Chris Coughlin
- Jun 4, 2020
- 6 min read
The Premier League is set to return on the 17th June after a postponement of over three months due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
The Bundesliga has led the way in terms of bringing top level sport back in Europe. Germany’s top flight started again three weeks ago with all games being played behind closed doors and England, Italy and Spain amongst others are set to follow in their footsteps.
Ahead of the resumption of the top flight in England, Matchday FM pundit Chris Coughlin talks about five things he’s learned from watching the Bundesliga back in action and how these factors could influence how the Premier League looks after its return later this month:
1) Having no crowds will have an impact
The biggest change when football is back in England, and almost anywhere for that matter, will be having no crowds inside the stadium. It took a bit of getting used to from a watching perspective and it’s been interesting to see how certain teams have struggled to adapt to the situation.
Union Berlin are the biggest example of this. For the majority of the season, they’ve been superb for what was expected of them in their first ever top-flight season. They feasted on the energy of their passionate home crowd to secure historic wins against the likes of Borussia Dortmund, Hertha Berlin and Borussia Monchengladbach.
They’d even performed well enough away from home given their limited resources by beating Mainz, Werder Bremen and Eintracht Frankfurt.
Since the restart, however, they’ve been a shadow of the team that was taking the Bundesliga by storm. They lost 2-0 against Bayern Munich, which admittedly is a result most promoted teams would happily take, but it’s been tough going since then.
They were thumped 4-0 and 4-1 at Hertha and Monchengladbach respectively, with their only point so far coming in a 1-1 home draw with Mainz who are also battling against the drop.
Admittedly, there’ll be some teams that won’t mind not having a home crowd, especially when they’re losing. For teams battling against relegation in England, however, having no crowd will be a challenge in itself to overcome, having no-one to push the team on when their backs are against the wall.
2) Quality will shine through
At the end of the day, despite the lack of a crowd and passionate atmosphere inside grounds, it’s still football. It’s still 22 elite athletes battling it out to get the better of each other and that has told in Germany.
In the Revierderby against Schalke, Dortmund showed the chasm in class between themselves and David Wagner’s men, winning 4-0 and that flattered Schalke. Bayern Munich have been pretty much themselves throughout so far, apart from a bizarre three-minute spell when they conceded two goals from Frankfurt’s Martin Hinteregger before winning 5-2.
For the likes of Marcus Thuram and Kai Havertz, you could even argue they’ve come back from lockdown even better than they were before. Havertz has five goals in four games for Bayer Leverkusen while Thuram has come back after the two month break with four goals himself for Borussia Monchengladbach.
RB Leipzig's attacking talents of Timo Werner, Christopher Nkunku and Patrick Schick have all found the net as well.
All three clubs are fighting for Champions League qualification.
That’s not to say that there won’t be any surprise results in the Premier League when it comes back, but it’s up to the players to show that lockdown has had no impact on quality.
Trent Alexander-Arnold and Ben Chilwell have both talked recently about the need to be firing when the games finally come around in a few weeks’ time. It’s up to the players to keep fit, be sharp and ready to go.
3) The battle at the bottom is far from over
When the Bundesliga returned and Werder Bremen were beaten 4-1 in their opening game by Leverkusen, I thought it would be a whimper over the finish line for them. Especially considering they were already cut adrift in the bottom two and winless in seven.
Since then, they’ve turned it around to give themselves a real chance of survival.
Before a rather toothless display in their 3-0 defeat by Frankfurt on Wednesday, they’d beaten both Freiburg and Schalke 1-0 away and drew 0-0 against Monchengladbach at home, meaning in three games against top half opposition, they won two games and didn’t conceded a single goal.
That will surely give hope to the likes of Bournemouth, Aston Villa and Norwich in their battle to avoid the drop from the Premier League.
Norwich in particular have plenty to do if they are to avoid an immediate return to the Championship, but a glance at their fixtures combined with Werder Bremen’s resurgence will give Daniel Farke’s men reason for optimism that they can claw back the six-point gap that currently stands between themselves and safety.
When the Premier League resumes, Norwich have home games against West Ham, Brighton and Southampton as well as an away game against Watford. That’s four games against teams hovering around the danger zone.
Teemu Pukki, Todd Cantwell and Emi Buendia are some of the most exciting attacking players in the bottom half of the table and they know they have an opportunity to pull off a truly great escape.
4) Don’t read much into the increase in away wins
On the face of it, it’s true that since the Bundesliga has resumed, there’s been a rise in the percentage of away wins compared to prior to lockdown. There’s been only eight home wins since the restart compared to eighteen away wins.
However, I believe this has been exaggerated somewhat. As I say in my first point, it’s inevitable that having no crowds in arenas that fit between 20,000 to 80,000 people will have some sort of an impact but when you see the results themselves, there aren’t too many away wins that jump out at you.
If Frankfurt and Fortuna Dusseldorf had both won at Bayern Munich, then we would have to start looking seriously at the trend of away wins. They would’ve been results that would’ve shaken the Bundesliga to its core.
Instead Bayern won both games comfortably, scoring five goals in each game. Nothing shocking there.
If Norwich were to win at the Etihad and the Emirates while Bournemouth went away to Manchester United and came away with all three points, that would undoubtedly get people talking about the “away win trend.” Time will tell but, honestly, this “trend” isn’t something I’m seriously looking at right now.
5) There are different ways for teams to use their five substitutes
I’ve been very interested to see how teams use their newly allotted amount of five substitutes in the Bundesliga, with the new rule being brought in mainly to protect against injury with sides coming back after the best part of two or three months without any competitive action.
For me, there’s a few ways the new rule can be adapted.
Firstly, it’s a core belief of mine that if you’re not one of the first three substitutions made for a team in a game then you’re not really in the tactical thinking of a manager, unless he’s forced into one through injury or a sending off.
With that train of thought, one method for clubs could be using your first three substitutions tactically and saving the other two in the event of injures, a luxury they wouldn’t normally have.
Another way to utilise the new substitution allowances is for clubs to use their first two or three as usual, before using their remaining substitutions to allow game time for fringe players or up-and-coming prospects.
Dortmund brought on Mateu Morey and Leonardo Balerdi against Paderborn in their 6-1 win while Bayern allowed for Joshua Zirkzee and Oliver Batista-Meier to get some minutes their 5-0 win over Dusseldorf.
For clubs in midtable building towards next season with not much if anything to play for, this method could also provide an opportunity to get youngsters more accustomed to first team football with no major pressure on them and allow them to potentially flourish by doing so.
Finally, having five substitutes will allow teams who are struggling to quite literally throw the kitchen sink at it. Imagine being a manager, ten minutes to go, trailing by a goal in a relegation six-pointer and having the option to chuck pretty much every remaining option you have in your reserve onto the pitch to try and grab at least a point, when normally you’d have played your hand by then.
Having five substitutions could play such a big part in the outcome of the season for so many teams.
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