Sweet goal from Demirovic. We're fine with him. He's not the pacey, dramatic, dynamic striker Guirassy was, but he's highly skilled, strong as an ox, and he comes to play. Baller.
Holy crap, I thought we were stealing it at the death. Great match, fair result, even though we got just a little unlucky conceding Bremen's second goal. But a point each is exactly right on this one.
Agreed. Of the three starters lost from last season's squad, Guirassy, Anton, and Ito, the latter two created a bigger hole to fill. Undav, Demirovic, and Toure are all good replacements for Guirassy.
Last year's squad had a certain swagger - like they expected to go and win games. This year's squad, I don't know. They certainly won't finish in second place in the league like last year, and may not finish high enough in the standings to be in the Europa League. We need our injured players to heal, and everyone to stay healthy to have a chance, because we don't have the depth of last year.
We're very much a mid-table squad at the moment. Some of that is injuries, but I agree with @Teak -- we haven't filled the gap left by Anton and Ito as effectively as we need to. I knew Anton was a tremendous loss, but now I'm thinking Ito might have been the biggest loss of all. We really, really need to get our back line sorted. But we are where we belong in the table: at 17 points and in the middle of the pack in the middle. The good news is, get healthy and we can make a run at Europa League. It would be a stretch to get there, and we're not doing any better than that, but it's still within reach if we get super hot.
Mainz has been much the better side against TSG, so they may pull away from the pack a little, albeit with a game in hand. But it's so close on the table, I'm not worried. We just have to take care of our business. For all the injuries and inconsistent play and adjustments to the lost players, we have the fewest losses in the pack, along with Mainz. Had just one of our draws been a win instead, we'd be level with Mainz on points and just ahead of Wolfsburg, in eighth place. We have one fewer loss than Freiburg; they sit sixth. So, we can make Europe for sure.
49' And Stuttgart are now behind 0-2. First half error by Nubel and now second half free kick into box that no one touched including Nubel dribbles into net. Union Berlin had only scored 10 1.B goals prior to this match. The VfB defense is really struggling these days.
It would appear that the alarm clock went off, and woke up the attack. I hope the defense has woken up, too.
It was the substitution that Hoeness made. He took out RB and put in Woltemade, going with two strikers.
69' Karazor scores his first 1.B goal, 3-2. The Union GK passed the ball directly to him! Good thing that VfB have an offense that can overcome their defensive screwups.
Missed this one today -- chemo infusion day -- just catching the last few minutes. Sounds like our struggles at the back continue.
Got home just in time. This is an entertaining end. I don't think I'd want to be around Bo after he gets a couple knocks under his belt tonight.
I was going to say, if you have a defense that gives up 2 goals/game, you'd better have an offense that scores 3 goals (or more)/game.
Sounds like the run of play changed dramatically once Sebastian brought on a second striker. Was it three at the back the rest of the way through?