Are Gladbach actually in trouble?
It looks grim for Die Fohlen but a delve into the numbers suggests otherwise
It looks like everything is on fire at Borussia Mönchengladbach, but dig a little deeper and it seems everything is actually fine.
All numbers per StatsBomb via FBRef.
Borussia Mönchengladbach are 13th in the Bundesliga with just 26 points from 22 games. It should be enough to stay up after last weekend’s win over FC Augsburg but it isn’t good enough for a club that has enjoyed some form of European football in six of the last 10 seasons.
To make matters worse, long-time squad builder extraordinaire Max Eberl — courted by the likes of Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund in recent years — has left the club. Eberl has overseen Gladbach’s rise from relegation candidates a decade ago to European regulars and signed a new contract just twelve months ago but departed in January.
“I am exhausted, I am tired. I don’t have any more energy to carry out this job as is necessary at this club,” said Eberl, a former Gladbach player who has become a club icon.
That came towards the end of the January transfer window, shortly before the sale of Denis Zakaria to Juventus, which came shortly after both Zakaria and Matthias Ginter confirmed they would not remain at the club beyond their existing contracts. Zakaria was sold, Ginter will leave for free at the end of the season and has been linked with the likes of Bayern Munich and Inter.
It sounds terrible, right? There’s more. The summer of 2023 will see the contracts of the club’s four top Bundesliga scorers since the start of 2018/19 expire.
Alassane Pléa: 32 goals
Lars Stindl: 28 goals
Jonas Hofmann: 24 goals
Marcus Thuram: 18 goals (in one season fewer)
And high fees won’t be forthcoming to help replace them; Pléa is having his worst goalscoring season since arriving, Stindl is now 33 and has scored in just one of his 18 Bundesliga appearances this season and Thuram hasn’t scored in the league this season having battled with injuries.
Hofmann, who has become a Germany regular, could catch a decent fee but could also stay with an eye on the World Cup. Neither scenario would be a disaster in his case.
And with all that going on, head coach Adi Hütter has faced surprisingly little pressure despite a truly awful season that included a run of just five points from nine games (three of them, bizarrely, coming in Munich) before last weekend’s win. Gladbach spent a hefty €7.5m to get the Austrian out his Eintracht Frankfurt contract, a bigger fee than they have paid for all but 18 players in their history. After such an outlay, plus a three-year contract that no doubt sees him earning well, firing him hasn’t really been an option the club can afford.
And that might actually be fine.
Despite all of the upheaval that has happened or is due, and the disappointing league table, Gladbach have actually largely just been unlucky.
Only five teams — the current top five in the league — have managed more expected goals this season, with Gladbach scoring just 26 from 36.8xG. It’s hardly Hütter’s fault that Stindl (two goals from 5.1xG) and Breel Embolo (two goals from 4.3xG) have squandered chances. Gladbach are creating plenty.
Things look worse defensively, Gladbach have conceded the 12th most expected goals in a league full of subpar defences, but the context is crucial.
Remove their worst two defensive performances of the season and RB Leipzig go from 1.48 xGA/90 to 1.26. You’d expect them to concede a goal less every 4.5 games based on that.
Bayer Leverkusen’s jump is even smaller, from 1.46 to 1.33
The worst team in the league, Fürth go from 1.86 to 1.7 while the best non-Bayern defence in the league, Mainz, go from 1.3 to 1.15.
But Gladbach, well Gladbach go from 1.6 to 1.32, or an extra goal every 3.5 matches. Or almost 10 extra goals per season.
Gladbach allowed 4.4 expected goals against Bayer Leverkusen and against RB Leipzig this season. Needless to say, that’s bad and those performance should count against them. But it should also come as a relief that there were two such horrendous games. They aren’t close to the typical Gladbach performance and aren’t what the team should be measured against.
The Leverkusen game makes a little more sense, and looks a little less wild, when you add in the fact that Gladbach started with Tony Jantschke and László Bénes, both with under 250 Bundesliga minutes this season.
Against Leipzig they played a back four, something unusual for Hütter at Frankfurt but something Gladbach have done seven times this season. Still, it clearly isn’t his preferred approach and something he is moving them away from — four of those seven matches with a four-man defence came in the first five games of the season. They’ve used it just twice in the 17 league games since, once being the demolition Leipzig handed out.
Gladbach have been good in attack all season long, with some bad luck, and pretty good defensively with the back three. They’re 12th in the league for xG against but rise to third if you remove the two anomalous matches where they were badly beaten.
Now that’s not happening here, those matches belong in the equation, but even with them they look like a perfectly fine side capable of challenging for the European places when they line up with a three-man defence.
With Nico Elvedi still there in defence and the exciting Kouadio Koné enjoying a superb first season in the Bundesliga the makings of a superb spine remains in place for Hütter to build around next season. For now, they just have to do enough over the next few months to remain a Bundesliga side, and that should happen without too much stress.
Really enjoy watching Kone play. He seems to get better with each match.