Hamburg-Bayern 0:1
Ancelotti rotated the midfield with the CL in mind; Ribery, Xabi Alonso and Vidal all started on the bench, in came in Coman, Renato Sanchez and Kimmich. This didn't work too well – Bayern barely created any decent chances until the last half hour when Ribery and Vidal entered the fray, after that it was all one-way traffic with the goal (Kimmich assisted by Ribery) finally coming in the 88th minute. Coman doesn't seem like an Ancelotti kind of player – I think he will be moved on in the summer if not January. Renato Sanchez so far is kind of meh. Kimmich on the other hand finds himself on an unbelievable scoring run – he scored his first goals for club and country last month and since then he is scoring in every game (5 in 5 so far)! Not bad for a 21-year old jack-of-all-trades midfielder/defender.
Hamburg coach Bruno Labbadia was sacked after this game, which may seem harsh judging just on this performance but in truth completely justified given how lifeless and bereft of any positive ideas Hamburg has been during his year-and-a-half tenure. Bundesliga has produced several really promising and innovative managers in recent years (Klopp, Tuchel, Favre, last season's coach of the year Dirk Schuster, Schalke's new coach Marcus Weinzirl etc), but there is also this class of rotating mediocrities who keep getting jobs just because somehow they have name recognition in Germany – Labbadia is a prime example of that sort of manager, so good riddance for Hamburg and good luck in finding a new boss.
Mainz-Bayer 2:3
After a difficult start (4 points in 4 games), Bayer's fortunes finally begin to turn for the better. Manager Roger Schmidt rotated the squad somewhat before the upcoming CL game – supersub Pohjanpalo has been given his first start alongside Chicharito. Mainz are a difficult team to play at home (as we found out in pre-season) and they were deservedly leading 2:1 when in the 60th minute Schmidt brought in Kiessling and Volland and that injection of energy and quality proved decisive, even though Chicharito was the one to get his name on the scoresheet for all 3 goals. Mainz's defense proved quite vulnerable to long looping balls from deep – Chicharito's 1st and 3rd goal were almost carbon copies.
Gladbach-Ingolstadt 2:0
Dahoud finally got his first league start of the season and judging by the highlights completely dominated the game – he should have had literally 5 assists, but in the end only had 1 because his teammates kept missing after he set them up. In a couple of those episodes Dahoud also won the ball to create a chance in the first place and some of his bursts of speed were seriously impressive. Easy win for Gladbach.
Werder-Wolfsburg 2:1
Just like I feared, the only Ukrainian coach in the top European leagues got sacked after losing 4 on the trot with Bremen. The caretaker manager Alexander Nouri clearly did his absolute best to imbue his young and very imperfect team with lots of positive energy and together with the Werder fans willing their team to win with all their soul that somehow proved enough against a far classier, but somewhat predictable Wolfsburg. Incredibly, both Draxler and Mario Gomez still don't have either a goal or an assist for Wolfsburg this season; this time Draxler hit the crossbar. Werder scored the winning goal from a corner at the 91st minute, sending the fans and the new manager into absolute delirious madness. This was a kind of game with not a lot of football, but a lot of raw emotion.
Hoffenheim-Schalke 2:1
Fifth loss in five games for Schalke under the new coach – the disastrous start continues. Marcus Weinzirl keeps switching around his players with the speed of a kaleidoscope – this time there were 4 changes compared to the loss against Köln: Geis, Meyer, Schopf and Naldo were dropped, Stambouli, Goretzka, Embolo and Nastasic were in their place. Schalke started well and were leading inside the first 5 minutes after Embolo's excellent cross for Chupo-Moting. But even without Naldo the defense wasn't quite watertight enough to hold on for 85 minutes, especially with Sacha Riether so weak and slow on his right flank of defense (which is where both goals came from). The attack had some promising moments with Embolo looking particularly lively, but once again was too dependent on Huntelaar – the Dutchman hit the post once, but other than that there just wasn't enough sustained creativity and patience in that front 4 to push Hoffenheim back. Still it doesn't look completely hopeless for Schalke, you get a feeling that through much trial and error Weinzirl is getting closer to finding the right balance and if they can cut out individual mistakes (like Bentaleb's giveaway for the 2nd goal) they will eventually start earning points and wins.
Dortmund-Freiburg 3:1
I watched most of this game live. Dortmund were missing a spark compared to some recent games and Freiburg had the better chances early, but couldn't convert them into a goal. Dortmund managed to score right before half-time, after a clever run and turn by Dembele set up a simple tap-in for Aubumeyang. I thought Emre Mor was busy, but wasteful in his first start of the season and Götze seems to have lost his cutting edge – so far this season he has been more of a support player rather than a "German Messi" he once was. Out of all Dortmund youngsters, so far my favorite is Pulisic – he reminds me of Gerrard when Gerrard played on the wing, in terms of his directness, pace and power. A few days later his introduction from the bench helped Dortmund turn around the game against Real Madrid:
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