4-0 win at Bielefeld puts Werkself level with Bayern

There was some bad news after the 4-0 win at Celtic. Mitchel Bakker suffered an injury at Celtic Park and was unavailable this weekend. He was replaced by Odilon Kossounou in the starting line-up with Piero Hincapie moving to the left from the centre of defence. The new signing from Ecuador thereby made his first start in the Bundesliga – as did Amine Adli who came into the front three in place of Paulinho. The third change was at the centre of the attack: Patrik Schick played instead of Lucas Alario. The Czech Republic international at the first chance of the game after a brilliant pass from Florian Wirtz but his first-time shot went wide to the right of the target (4').

Diaby finishes great move

The second goalscoring opportunity at the start of a hard-fought match saw the Werkself take the lead: Having won the ball, Adli passed to Wirtz with the outside of his boot and his diagonal ball into the penalty area goes flicked on by Schick to Moussa Diaby. The Frenchman rounded off this great move by nutmeging the Arminia keeper Ortega Moreno (18').

Bielefeld almost hit straight back with Patrick Wimmer finding the back of the net from a long throw-in with a very impressive back-heel goal, which was however ruled out: Masaya Okugawa was in an offside position obstructing the view of Lukas Hradecky (18'). Instead it was the Werkself who scored the second goal: Wirtz broke through the middle, picked up speed and played a perfect through-ball to Schick who beat two Bielefeld defenders before tucking the ball into the far corner of the net (24').

lots of chances for goal number three

Bielefeld now had to come out and play with Alessandro Schöpf testing Hradecky on the half-hour mark and Fabian Klos headed a corner over the bar (32'). Again and again there was more space for Bayer 04 who were significantly closer to scoring the next goal as they constantly played with determination on the break: Moreno denied Schick from the next great pass from Wirtz (30'), Diaby put a shot wide after a lightning counter-attack down the right with Adli just failing to connect (33'), and the keeper was also able to stop Schick when he was in a promising position (41'), and Wirtz ended a fine individual move with a shot just the right of the target (45+1'). There were no more goals before half-time.

frimpong turns up the heat - schick bags brace

Bayer 04 continued to play on the front foot after the restart with Joakim Nilsson deflecting away a dangerous effort from Wirtz (48'). Bielefeld showed clear intention but the Werkself stood up to their aggressive attacks – and mounted their own attacks with plenty of vision: Adli raced through and passed to Jeremie Frimpong who crossed the ball to the near post. Schick beat Amos Pieper in an aerial challenge and headed the ball into the net off the underside of the bar to make it 3-0 to Bayer 04 (57') – another great attack from the Werkself.

Worth highlighting and not just with the goal: Provider Frimpong, who tirelessly ran up and down the right flank and constantly succeeded in presenting the Bielefeld defence with problems. He tried to score himself from the edge of the penalty area with a low shot that went just wide of the right-hand post (60'). On the back of a comfortable lead, Bayer 04 eased off with Gerardo Seoane making five changes to give players a rest after a strength-sapping week.

Demirbay penalty makes it 4-0

The match petered out as Bielefeld were also tiring in the face of defeat. Hradecky did save a header from Klos (69'), Adli put the ball over the bar at the end of a high-speed counter-attack (81') and substitute Karim Bellarabi tested Moreno with a hard shot (90'). Following this chance, the sub was caught in the face by the hand of Florian Krueger – a penalty to the Werkself. Kerem Demirbay stepped up, sent Moreno the wrong way to round off proceedings in a  very successful encounter for the Werkself – and seal the second 4-0 win in succession (90+2').

The comfortable victory sees Bayer 04 draw level on points with league leaders FC Bayern who lost 2-1 at home to Eintracht Frankfurt earlier in the evening. After the international break there is a top of the table clash with first playing second on 17 October with the record champions visiting the BayArena in a 15.30 CEST kick-off.

Match stats:

Arminia Bielefeld: Ortega Moreno - Brunner, Pieper, Nilsson, Czyborra (de Medina 77’) - Prietl, Schöpf (Kunze 62’) - Wimmer (Krüger 62’), Okugawa, Hack (Fernandes 77’) - Klos (Lasme 77’)

Bayer 04: Hradecky – Frimpong, Kossounou, Tah, Hincapie (Sinkgraven 64’) – Aránguiz (Amiri 75’), Demirbay – Adli, Wirtz (Bellarabi 75’), Diaby (Paulinho 64’) – Schick (Alario 75’)

Goals: 0-1 Diaby (18’), 0-2 Schick (24’), 0-3 Schick (57’), 0-4 Demirbay (90+2’, pen.)

Booked: Brunner, Wimmer, Czyborra, Ortega Moreno - Hincapie

Referee: Felix Zwayer (Berlin)

Attendance: 16,250