Five games without a win
©IMAGO
Five games in a row and now for exactly a month, RB Leipzig has been waiting for a sense of success across all competitions. That should change this weekend against VfL Wolfsburg. Also to bring calm back into the club. In the run-up to the game, coach Marco Rose expressed his confidence, while managing director Marcel Schäfer commented on the media speculation surrounding the coaching staff in an interview with the “Bild” newspaper.
Rose accepts the challenge at the struggling Bundesliga club and wants to remain focused. “It’s my job to turn it around together with the boys,” explained the coach before the game against Lower Saxony on Saturday (3:30 p.m./Sky). RB had slipped to third place in the table and is eight points behind leaders Bayern Munich. “The edge before things get restless in Leipzig are the magical three games without a win. We’ve had this happen several times over the past two years and then we got an answer. Now we are at five and we should make sure that there are not many more to calm the situation down again,” said Rose.
He knows how quickly things can change in football. “You don’t lose 19 games in a row and everything is fine. Then you end up in a situation like we have now with four defeats and then things quickly become unpleasant. “That’s normal,” Rose said. Now the turnaround must be achieved again and that can only be achieved through fight and clarity. In the defeats in Dortmund and Glasgow, the intensity, the gall and the greed to prevent crosses were missing. “That had distinguished us before. “We also had to make compromises when it came to moving towards the opponent’s goal and our willingness to accept duels,” said the coach.
He also listed positive aspects: “In the second half in Milan we took a step forward again in terms of defensiveness,” said Rose, who didn’t want to make any excuses: “We alone are responsible for that. Everything else, like perhaps the injury list, is not a topic of discussion for me.”
RB Leipzig: Boss Schäfer confident about the turnaround
Managing director Schäfer also conveyed confidence in an interview with the “Bild” newspaper on Friday: “I am fundamentally an optimist and believe that we also defended ourselves in Milan. The attitude, the willingness was better than in the last games. The bottom line is that we were still missing something, especially going forward. We lost and have to start the next attempt on Saturday. From the first minute, with our fans behind us. We should slowly get three points for them too.”
The latest results are “clearly not enough for our requirements,” Schäfer continued. The 40-year-old ex-professional avoided the question about the future of coach Rose and instead took the entire group to task: “We all want to achieve the turnaround together. And I have emphasized several times in the past few weeks that I am convinced that we can achieve this in the current constellation. (…) Everyone, whether starting eleven, bench or injured player, can and should do their part. Everyone has to take responsibility in this situation. I expect the boys to support, push and challenge each other. That’s how I perceive the team.” In an interview with “Kicker” published the day before, Schäfer emphasized that he was “convinced of Marco’s coaching team.”
