News in brief: Jonathan Tah's eight predecessors

There was a wide range of praise amongst the members of the press after the 3-1 home win for the Werkself against Eintracht Frankfurt. The talk was of "courageous attacking football" or "hardly any gaps" in defence. One statistic that applies to both teams is noteworthy: Bayer 04 and Eintracht Frankfurt have never played out a goalless draw in their previous 72 Bundesliga matches. No other fixture in the history of the league has been played so often without a 0-0 draw.

Top marks for the last match between Bayer 04 and Eintracht, as in the 3-0 home win against Köln, went to Leon Bailey. The 23-year-old added to his derby double with another goal against Frankfurt and he provided the assist for Lucas Alario to make it 2-0. "However, it's much more important that he is working hard. Leon makes the most of every moment both in attack and in defence," said his coach Hannes Wolf after the end of the game.

Bailey was not only the Man of the Match for Werkself fans on Saturday at the BayArena but he was also in the top matchday teams. The ARD-Sportschau, BILD and the kicker include the top scorer and provider at Bayer 04 (9 goals, 8 assists).

‘Jolle’ bags a hat-trick

In addition to Bailey, Joel Pohjanpalo was also in the team of the day in a number of sports media. The 26-year-old centre forward is currently out on loan from Bayer 04 at Bundesliga rivals Union Berlin. 'Jolle' was in the Union team that played Werder Bremen on Saturday afternoon – and he scored a hat-trick (50', 53', 67') in the 3-1 home win.

Those were the first goals Pohjanpalo has scored in the top-flight as a player starting a game with his first nine Bundesliga goals all scored off the bench. The loanee from Leverkusen can also call himself the first Bundesliga hat-trick hero for Union Berlin. Carry on, 'Jolle'.

Next one, please

In no other position have there been as many Werkself players involved this season as at right-back. Jonathan Tah started on the right side of defence instead of in the middle against Frankfurt at the weekend. The Germany international was given the role of stopping Filip Kostic and he succeeded impressively without any problems.

As the established players at right back for the Black and Reds have again and again dropped out due to injury, Tah was the ninth Werkself player employed in that position. He was preceded by Lars Bender, Santiago Arias, Aleksandar Dragovic, Tin Jedvaj, Mitchell Weiser, Timothy Fosu-Mensah, Jeremie Frimpong plus Karim Bellarabi. That must be a club record.

Dresden: Scholz under Schmidt in future

Heiko Scholz did not play more Bundesliga games for any other club as he did for Bayer 04 in his professional career. Born in Görlitz, he was signed from Dynamo Dresden in 1992 and he made 75 league appearances for Bayer 04 in the following three years (5 goals). He ended his playing career five years after leaving Leverkusen and the former winger became a coach. After a number of clubs, including MSV Duisburg, Scholz has been assistant coach at Dynamo Dresden for the past 18 months. And now the former Leverkusen player has a new boss: The team lying fourth in the third division have brought in Alexander Schmidt as a successor to Markus Kauczinski.

Augsburg: Aus für Herrlich und Metaxas

Und auch beim FC Augsburg gab es eine Veränderung auf der Trainer-Position. Markus Weinzierl hat als Chefcoach den ehemaligen Leverkusener Heiko Herrlich abgelöst. Herrlich war von 1989 bis 1993 als Spieler und von 2017 bis Dezember 2018 als Trainer unter dem Bayer-Kreuz aktiv. Beim FCA assistierte ihm Iraklis Metaxas. Der gebürtige Kölner war von 2016 bis 2019 als Jugendtrainer für Bayer 04 tätig und musste nun in der Fuggerstadt zusammen mit Herrlich gehen.