Looking Around the League: Bayern Munich Lose 2-1 to Eintracht Frankfurt

Julian Nagelsmann suffered his first defeat as Bayern Munich manager, at the hands of Oliver Glasner’s Eintracht Frankfurt. Bayern opened the scoring through Leon Goretzka, but were immediately pegged back by a Martin Hinteregger header. The game remained tied, until the 83rd minute, when Filip Kostic smashed the winner into the far corner, from just inside the penalty area.

However, it’s Kevin Trapp that takes the vast majority of the credit for Frankfurt’s victory. He played an absolute blinder, making ten saves, several of them world class. Bayern had 73% of the possession in yesterday’s game, and put up 2.54 expected goals to Frankfurt’s 0.35 (according to FotMob). It was a huge performance by Trapp, and Frankfurt were paid mightily for the efforts.

Here’s a roundup of the rest of the action in the Bundesliga over the weekend.

Results

Cologne 3-1 Greuther Furth

Borussia Dortmund 2-1 Augsburg

Hertha Berlin 1-2 Freiburg

VfB Stuttgart 3-1 Hoffenheim

Wolfsburg 1-3 Borussia Monchengladbach

RB Leipzig 3-0 VfL Bochum

Mainz 1-2 Union Berlin

Bayern Munich 1-2 Frankfurt

Arminia Bielefeld 0-4 Leverkusen

Standings

Bayer Leverkusen’s Brilliant Start to the Season

Something that has been bubbling away so far this season, but that has not been mentioned in these roundups, has been the scorching form of Bayer Leverkusen, led by Florian Wirtz, who has put up four goals and give assists in 366 minutes! Last night, they hammered Arminia Bielefeld 4-0, to go level on points with Bayern at the top of the table.

They’ve been on a real hot streak, but to what extent can we expect Leverkusen to keep this up? Now that we’re a few games into the season, we can start to get some value out of the xG data in the Bundesliga, to help answer that question. In terms of xGD (expected goals for minus expected goals against), Leverkusen do appear to be overperforming a little. They sit second in the table, but in terms of xGD they are fourth, behind Bayern, Dortmund, and RB Leipzig. Leverkusen have scored 20 goals so far this season, conceding 7, but their xG for the season is 11.8 and their xGA is 8.4. This suggests a slight overperformance, but their underlying numbers do also show that they have been the better team in the majority of their games. So while I’m not sure we can look at Leverkusen as a genuine title competitor, yet, they’re definitely still a very good team.

Bayer Leverkusen will really get to test themselves after the international break though, when they host Bayern Munich!

Your Thoughts?

Do you think Bayer Leverkusen are the real deal? And will RB Leipzig catch the chasing pack?