SUMMARY: HANDFUL OF CHANCES ENOUGH FOR WIN
The contest at SIGNAL IDUNA PARK was mostly played between the two penalty boxes, in stark contrast to the spectacular football of the previous match against Wolfsburg. Bayer 04 defended tightly and only allowed the hosts, who had collected 28 of a possible 33 points in the second half of the season to date and won 10 of their last 12 league games, just two real goalscoring opportunities. With the first for Daniel Svensson, Loïc Badé rescued the ball off the line with his head for the beaten Mark Flekken, who directed Serhou Guirassy's effort onto the bar late on in BVB's second big chance. In between that, it was the Werkself who had slightly more of the chances, with Christian Kofane and his later replacement Patrik Schick both being denied by Gregor Kobel. The BVB keeper was powerless for the winning goal from Robert Andrich in the 42nd minute, however: the Bayer 04 captain anticipated the counter-pressing just right, intercepted Ramy Bensebaini's pass and fired the ball with full force at 119.4 km/h into the net from long range. Read the full match report HERE.
REACTION: 'THE RIGHT BALANCE THIS TIME'
When one player keeps a clean sheet and the other scores the winning goal, of course there's no cause for complaint. "It was important to come away from here with the three points - and, for me personally, that we kept a clean sheet after two very frantic games," said Flekken. And the goalkeeper praised the players in front of him: "The guys in front of me did a great job defensively and kept a lot away from the goal. We had the right balance in all the facets of our game this time."
Andrich viewed it similarly: "We took a bit of time to get into it, but then we did well both with and without the ball, and deservedly got the goal in my opinion. Wins in Dortmund taste very good, but ultimately they're still only worth three points. So, we shouldn't get carried away and we have to build on this in the coming matches," added the captain.
