Werkself beat Twente in first friendly of the year

"I saw some good work from my players today," declared Peter Bosz after his first test as the new head coach at Bayer 04. "There were a lot of new things for the lads this week and it was interesting to see how they put that into action in the game," said the 55-year-old. Four days after the Dutchman had taken up his new post, the game at the Ulrich Haberland Stadium was played behind closed doors on the advice of the police – only journalists were allowed access to the stands.

Led by skipper Charles Aránguiz, the Black and Reds took charge of the game from the start against the team lying fourth in the Dutch league in persistent rain – the only real chance for the visitors was thwarted by the alert Ramazan Özcan in a one-on-one with Twente's Aitor Cantalapiedra  (23'). Otherwise the action was all in one direction. Attempts from Lucas Alario (9'), Sam Schreck (22') and Charles Aránguiz (27') were all kept out by Joel Drommel, performing well in the visitor's goal. Resistance was finally broken on 32 minutes with Alario converting from the penalty spot. The spot kick was awarded for a foul on Isaac Kiese Thelin. Kohr rounded off a committed first half with a left-foot shot into the right corner of the net to make it 2-0 at the break.

eleven changes at half-time

Bosz changed his whole line-up for the second half. Nevertheless, the Werkself continued to impress for much of the second 45 minutes but they were lucky when the Twente striker Jelle van der Heyde put his shot wide of the target with only Lukas Hradecky to beat (68'). At that point, Kevin Volland had already scored to make it 3-0 (58') after a move involving Karim Bellarabi and Wendell, with Kai Havertz (51') and Bellarabi (54') being denied by the visitor's keeper before that. Leon Bailey netted the fourth and final goal on 78 minutes with a close-range effort that completed probably the best move of the game that involved Julian Brandt and Bellarabi. "We were happy with the result but our opponents did have some chances. But we've trained hard and tried out a lot of new approaches. Of course, not everything can go right after such a short time," said Bosz in his assessment of the first performance of his new team.

Bayer 04: Özcan (Hradecky 46') – Weiser (L. Bender 46'), Jedvaj (Tah 46'), Dragovic (S. Bender 46'), Bednarczyk (Wendell 46') – Kohr (Brandt 46'), Aránguiz (Baumgartlinger 46'), Schreck (Havertz 46') – Kiese Thelin (Bellarabi 46'), Alario (Volland 46'), Paulinho (Bailey 46')

The next  two  Werkself friendlies will be played on Friday. The Werkself play Dutch top-flight side PEC Zwolle (14.00 CET, Ulrich Haberland Stadium) and then Preußen Münster. While the first match of the day is open to supporters (free of charge), the game against the third division side will again be held behind closed doors.