LEVERKUSEN: Champions Bayer Leverkusen twice hit the woodwork and missed a bagful of chances but could not score in a goalless draw against visitors VfB Stuttgart on Friday, dropping more points in their Bundesliga title defence.

Leverkusen dominated the duel between last season’s top two sides in the league but failed to break through, with Victor Boniface, Florian Wirtz and Jeremie Frimpong all spurning opportunities.

The draw means Leverkusen, who dropped just 12 points last season in an unbeaten title charge, have already dropped 11 this campaign and are in third place on 16 points. They could finish the weekend seven points behind league leaders Bayern Munich and RB Leipzig.

Leverkusen coach Xabi Alonso was surprisingly upbeat, saying his side delivered their most complete performance in the Bundesliga this season.

“We are unhappy. We thought we had done enough to win it,” Alonso said. “We pressed well. Our players showed a lot of energy to press a lot. “We created a lot of chances in the first half. But we also had chances in the second half. Maybe the most complete performance from us even though we did not score. It was a top game.

It is still early in the season,” Alonso said when asked about the growing gap with the league leaders. “There are enough games. We want to keep going.”

Leverkusen will need to regroup before Tuesday’s Champions League clash with Alonso’s former club Liverpool, who are one of only two sides to have claimed a perfect nine points in the competition this season.

“From Monday we focus on Liverpool. A big game, to play in Anfield,” he said.

Alonso’s team had Stuttgart on the backfoot from the start and in a one-sided first half the hosts missed more than half a dozen golden scoring chances and hit the crossbar with Edmond Tapsoba’s header.

Stuttgart keeper Alexander Nuebel was in stunning form, stopping efforts from Frimpong and Alejandro Grimaldo in the first half to keep them in the game.

With the visitors, who host Atalanta in the Champions League on Wednesday, not managing a single shot on or towards goal for an hour, Leverkusen kept pouring forward.

Boniface rattled the post with a powerful shot eight minutes after the restart as Leverkusen picked up where they had left off.

Nuebel then had to come to the rescue again, first denying Nigeria international Boniface in a one-on-one in the 73rd before blocking a Wirtz effort a little later to make sure Stuttgart got their point.

Stuttgart, last season’s runners-up, finished the night in seventh place on 13 points, but coach Sebastian Hoeness said “the table doesn’t interest me that much at all — it’s still too early.”

“We didn’t really convince, but we fought with everything we had in defence — I’m OK with it.”

Published in Dawn, November 3rd, 2024