Meet two new arrivals
©IMAGO
Even the debut goal from winter signing Jovan Milosevic could not end SV Werder Bremen’s crisis in the Bundesliga. The situation at Eintracht Frankfurt has not improved after the 3:3 (1:1) at the start of the second half of the season. The Serbian Milosevic scored 16 minutes after coming on as a substitute to make it 3-2 against the Champions League participants from Hesse. But Frankfurt’s Ansgar Knauff dashed Bremen’s hopes of their first win in six games in injury time.
The hosts held on even after falling behind twice with goals from Frankfurt’s new signing Arnaud Kalimuendo after 50 seconds and Nnamdi Collins (56th). Justin Njinmah (29th) and Jens Stage (78th) each equalized for the hosts – and looked like the winners after Milosevic’s goal.
The draw in front of 41,800 spectators neither helps Bremen in the relegation battle nor Frankfurt in the fight for a place in the European Cup. The defensively vulnerable Hessians once again conceded three goals.
Werder with the same line-up, Frankfurt with a change of system
Werder coach Horst Steffen trusted the formation that was on the pitch at the start of Tuesday’s 3-0 defeat to Borussia Dortmund. His colleague Dino Toppmöller, however, was forced to swap after the 2:3 loss at VfB Stuttgart. Because of the injury to winter signing and storm hopeful Younes Ebnoutalib, he changed his system from 4-4-2 to 3-4-2-1 and brought in four new players.
Toppmöller’s forced change seemed to pay off quickly: after around 50 seconds the ball was in the Bremen goal. Kalimuendo – Frankfurt’s second winter striker – prevailed over Bremen defender Amos Pieper and lifted the ball into the net after a pass from Nathaniel Brown over Werder goalkeeper Mio Backhaus.
The hosts needed some time to process the early shock. For a long time too little happened forward. The Frankfurt team concentrated on stabilizing their recently unstable defense and fell far behind. That worked at first.
Werder’s Njinmah is hard to hold
Only the fast Njinmah kept eluding them. Although the Werder striker narrowly missed the mark after a counterattack in the 20th minute, he did better nine minutes later after a great pass from Yukinari Sugawara and ended Bremen’s goal drought after three games. Werder’s strongest pressure phase began. The guests hardly came out of their own half and Bremen controlled the game more and more. Opportunities were just in short supply.
Werder continued to push after the break and sometimes combined impressively. The Bremen team were superior. It was all the more surprising that the guests took the lead again – with the kind help of the Werder defense. Collins (56th) took advantage of the hosts’ mistake in the build-up of the game and turned the game on its head.
Werder were not impressed this time and continued to play forward. Again it was Njinmah (68th) who missed the biggest chance when he narrowly missed the ball while standing alone. The Bremen team didn’t give up and got their deserved equalizer through Stage (78′). Just two minutes later, Stuttgart loanee Milosevic introduced himself in style with his goal in his first home game for Werder. Knauff ended up spoiling the Bremen party.
