A dodgy defensive record is hardly ideal of course.
Combine that with a wasteful streak at the other end, however, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster. A combustible cocktail that leads to nothing but regret, shame and one hell of a hangover.
Only three teams in the Bundesliga have conceded more goals than Borussia Monchengladbach this season. 40 in 22 games, six of those coming in 35 haunting minutes at home to Freiburg in December.
‘Gladbach have also scored fewer than Freiburg, Mainz, Hoffenheim, Koln and only four more than a Stuttgart side stuck in the relegation zone with their talismanic striker missing most of the season through injury.
It should come as no real surprise, then, that Gladbach will not be taking their usual seat at Europe’s top table next season.
Champions League football is a pipe dream.
The threat of relegation, a creeping nightmare threatening to seep into the fabric of reality.
What next for Marcus Thuram?
Under-fire coach Adi Hutter can’t even rely upon two of the division’s most gifted forwards to fire Gladbach up the table.
Alassane Plea and Marcus Thuram contributed ten goals apiece in 2019/20. This term, the previously free-scoring Frenchmen have netted just four between them. And none of those have come from Thuram.
“Thuram is trying in training to get back to the level he was at before,” Hutter says (BuliNews).
Thuram is yet to score or even produce an assist in 16 games this season.
Less than 12 months ago, Thuram was one of the most coveted young forwards in Europe. And with good reason.
Thuram wasn’t just an emerging goalscorer. He was also starting to strike fear into the heart of Bundesliga defenders, his quick feet and turn of pace from the left-hand side justifying those Thierry Henry comparisons.
Can Gladbach survive?
Everton were linked, Liverpool too. L’Equipe even claimed that Tottenham Hotspur had opened talks regarding a potential £21 million move to the Premier League.
According to Mino Raiolo, Thuram’s agent, the son of Les Bleus legend Lillian should be an Inter Milan player right now.
A cruelly-timed knee injury, one that spoiled his summer and dulled his goalscoring instincts, put pay to that (Sport1).
They do say that form is temporary.
But with Gladbach glancing over their shoulder and threatening to go the same way as other fallen giants Hamburg and Schalke, Hutter will be hoping that Thuram’s class is, indeed, permanent.
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