It has been a horrendous week for Werder Bremen as they followed up a 6-1 demolition at the hands of Bayern at the weekend with a 5-0 home defeat by Mainz. Robin Quaison was the star for the visitors, scoring a first-half hat-trick. The first two goals highlighted his prowess for beating the offside trap, which he did on both occasions to run in behind to smash into the top corner for the first and calmly finish into the bottom corner for his second. To earn his hat-trick, he was in the right place at the right time to score from close range after glanced header to the back post from a corner.
Philipp Max has been in outstanding form recently and can regularly be found making FootballCritic's Bundesliga Team of the Week. He continued his high performance level this midweek by scoring two and setting up another in Augsburg's 3-0 win at home to Dusseldorf. To open the scoring, he benefited from keeping up with the play via a lung-busting run to fire in a rebound after a blocked shot. Then, he assisted Tin Jedvaj's bullet header with a corner-kick. To double his tally, he fired a cross-cum-shot at goal from range which was spilled into the back of the net by the keeper.
Hertha put potentially vital ground between themselves and the relegation zone with a hard-fought 1-0 win away at Leverkusen. They rode their luck at times, however, which is why they had to rely on Rune Jarstein for the clean sheet. The Norwegian made seven saves in total as well as 12 ball recoveries as the visitors held on for the win, with Leverkusen turning up the heat in the latter stages. Most of his saves were relatively routine, but one in particular stood out as he stretched out a hand to tip over an attempt from Kevin Volland from very close range.
Back to Augsburg, now, and Jedvaj makes the top five after his goal and solid defensive performance against Dusseldorf. He scored the second goal of the game after darting ahead of his marker at the front post to slam a header home after the aforementioned assist from Max. Defensively he was excellent too, though, winning 10/13 duels, 7/10 aerial duels, 100% of his tackles, as well as making nine ball recoveries, two interceptions, and three clearances.
To say Dortmund shot themselves in the foot against RB Leipzig would be something of an understatement, as it was two awful mistakes which allowed the visitors to get back into things after BVB led 2-0. Timo Werner was the beneficiary of these mistakes as he scored his first after goalkeeper Roman Burki sped out from goal for a clearing header, only to put the ball right into the path of the centre-forward, who impressively passed home from range. For his second, he took advantage of a slack backpass from Julian Brandt to round Burki again to slot into the empty net.
HONOURABLE MENTION
Tony Jantschke (8.5) and Lars Stindl (8.5) both performed well for Gladbach this midweek as they beat Paderborn 2-0 to remain level on points with RB Leipzig at the top of the table, with the latter scoring a penalty to clinch the victory.
ROUND TO FORGET
Milos Veljkovic (4.8) was, well, not very good at the back for Werder Bremen in the home drubbing by Mainz. He made one direct error leading to a goal, lost possession 11 times, lost 6/7 duels, and didn't make one successful tackle.
