What the papers say: ‘Kerem Demirbay involved in most moves'

The Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger writes under the category of "That was good", that the Werkself created "a number of decent attacks" above all in the first half. Most of the attacking moves involved Kerem Demirbay, who "was able to build on his good performance in the victory against Frankfurt. Again and again, he found gaps in the Bremen defence and exploited them with accurate passes."

The Rheinische Post headline after the 0:0 at Werder Bremen reads, "Leverkusen miss out on Champions League." As Borussia Dortmund beat RB Leipzig 3-2 at the same time on Saturday, the Werkself cannot mathematically finish in the top four. In the race to qualify for the Europa League, the team under head coach Hannes Wolf gained a point on their rivals: Borussia Mönchengladbach suffered a 6-0 defeat against the champions from Munich and Union Berlin lost 3-0 to VfL Wolfsburg. That means the gap to seventh place with two games to play is now five points – and the goals difference is clearly in favour of the Black and Reds.

Defence shines alongside Dragovic 

The RP as usual assesses the performances of the individual Werkself players. This time Jonathan Tah, Aleksandar Dragovic and Edmond Tapsoba were given the second highest mark of 2, goalkeeper Lukas Hradecky the same mark with a small minus. Creative player Demirbay was also awarded a 2. According to RP, he was "full of good ideas" and he also played numerous intelligent passes.

The dominant themes in the report in the Bild-Zeitung were the physical challenges by the hosts as well as the resulting knocks for the Leverkusen players: "Amiri went off in pain after being fouled (Eren Dinkci brought him down in added time and was shown the red card, ed.). And his Leverkusen teammates Daley Sinkgraven (knee), Kerem Demirbay (ankle) and Leon Bailey (nasty kick from Sargent on three minutes – suspected broken toe) picked up injuries."

Werder Bremen’s Jiri Pavlenka "secured a point" according to the report in kicker. The best chance apart from the offside goal from Florian Wirtz (35’) fell to left-back Wendell but the Brazilian shot straight at the Werder keeper on 81 minutes when well-placed.