Borussia Monchengladbach welcomed RB Leipzig to Borussia-Park, hoping to arrest a slide that has seen them slip from third place in February, level on points with Bayern Munich, to fifth place. Falling out of the top four in the Bundesliga means they now risk missing out on UEFA Champions League football next season. Winless in their last five home league matches, Dieter Hecking is hoping to finish his final season at Borussia-Park strongly, as he is due to be replaced next season by Marco Rose from Red Bull Salzburg.
RB Leipzig entered this match having won six straight away league games and knew a victory would put them 10 points ahead of Borussia Monchengladbach and almost ensure they would be playing Champions League football next season. The Saxony side came into this match in better form, with only one loss since the beginning of 2019.
The home side came into this match with clear attacking intent, looking to turn their season around and get three desperately needed points. Unfortunately for Dieter Hecking, and Gladbach, they ran into a well-organised and defensively compact side that was able to easily absorb pressure before attacking swiftly from the wide areas. RB Leipzig took the lead in the 17th minute after Marcel Halstenberg was brought down inside the penalty area by Patrick Herrmann.
This lead was doubled in the 53rd minute when Halstenberg scored again to give RB Leipzig a 2-0 lead. The side from North Rhine-Westphalia was able to cut the deficit to 2-1 when Alassane Pléa scored in the 61st minute. However, this is as close as Gladbach would get. RB Leipzig had a couple of opportunities to kill the match off, but Yann Sommer made some key saves to see the match end 2-1.
Lineups
Dieter Hecking stuck with the 3-4-1-2 formation that he’s used in the past two matches, making only two changes to the side that won 1-0 against relegation-threatened Hannover 96 a week earlier. Nico Elvedi was left out of the squad, being replaced at centre-back by Tony Jantschke. Raffael got the start up front, replacing Lars Stindl who fractured his leg against Hannover and is out for the rest of the season.
Ralf Rangnick named an unchanged side in consecutive matches in the Bundesliga for the first time this season. The German stuck with the 3-5-2 that he used to great success a week earlier in a 2-0 victory at home against Wolfsburg.
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