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The winterpause is now over as the Bundesliga clubs send players home for the holidays and have been training in Spain, Malta, Portugal, Florida, and domestically in Germany.
Time to resume the highest scoring and most attended league in Europe.
Where We Left Off
With Gladbach having a last match slip up, Leipzig moved top by two points. Bayern in third trails by four points with the Revierederby rivals in fourth (Borussia Dortmund) and fifth (Schalke) two points back.
Down at the bottom, it’s of no surprise that Paderborn are rock bottom, but its more of a surprise who are down with them as Werder Bremen are just two points better than SCP. In the 16th place for the relegation playoff, is a team to be expected in Fortuna Dusseldorf.
Biggest disappointment
Werder Bremen-The Northern club from the Free City has been decimated by injuries proving hard to get any traction. Losing six of their last seven, the club has plummeted down the table and it’s for more than a few reasons. Winter reinforcement has arrived in Kevin Vogt, but questions remain as to if Bremen get healthy and can they find the form that had them finish in eighth last campaign.
Biggest Surprise
Borussia Monchengladbach – The Foals have not won a title of any sort since their DFB Pokal in 1995. But with a squad already mostly formed, it has been new manager Marco Rose who has given a sense of style that was honed in Salzburg in Austria. Some will say that Gladbach doesn’t have the staying power, but after their exit from the Europa League and Pokal, the squad can focus solely on the Bundesliga as opposed to the other title challengers.
Who Gets Relegated?
Paderborn needs a lot of help to survive, their position is down to the fact that everyone above them has been under performing and unless they get some more victories they won’t just be relegated but will be bottom end of season.
Fortuna Dusseldorf had a massive run to bail themselves out and a really great player in Dodi Lukabakio, who now is at Hertha. It is a case of second season syndrome and while they will not go down without a fight, the Fortunen will be going down a division.
Mainz has had both good and bad days, but some of their good days have been too much at random. Lady luck does run out and Mainz will scrape by via the relegation playoff but on the other side of the second division could be a Hamburg or Stuttgart and that would possibly mean 16th goes down for a second season running.
Who Wins the Bundesliga
For purists, RB Leipzig rubs them the wrong way, but the current league leaders are showing under Julian Naglesmann what it takes to be a winner. The first big test is away to Bayern on February 9th and should RB prevail, then yes someone not from Munich will be winning the Meisterschale.
