RB Leipzig haven’t had the easiest few days since beating Celtic in the UEFA Champions League on Wednesday night – with one of their star attackers being chided publicly by the manager, their captain undergoing serious knee surgery, a technical director being dismissed, and more points being dropped in the German top-flight.
The latter development has just occurred, with Leipzig needing a late Christopher Nkunku goal to rescue them from a defeat away to bottom-half-of-the-table Mainz.
The 1-1 result against a pretty average outfit is further evidence that this team can be gotten at on Tuesday evening, despite their professional dispatching of Celtic in the second half mid-week.
The draw came after a fair amount of fall-out in the wake of their victory over the Bhoys.
Marco Rose, for example, was far from happy with Timo Werner’s public reaction to being substituted against Celtic, telling a press conference: “The player approached me, we talked and exchanged our views. But the facts are I can’t tolerate such things and I don’t want to tolerate them.
“That’s important and I think that’s what Timo understood. The matter is closed and it won’t happen again. It’s a team game and I made that clear to him.”
Werner did feature in today’s trip to Mainz, so the issue isn’t serious enough to impact selection.
Elsewhere, technical director Christopher Vivell was dismissed from his position, which the club said was due to a ‘difference of opinion’.
Vivell has been reported by The Guardian to be on the verge of a move to Chelsea in a similar role, so clearly there’s been a bit of internal upset there over the last week after a two-year relationship.
They’ll be arriving in Glasgow confident of performing well after beating us through the week, but there are still a few interesting underlying narratives heading into the return tie.
Not least the absence of their captain Peter Gulasci who, unfortunately, is having to undergo surgery on Sunday after suffering an ACL tear in Wednesday night’s clash.
Janis Blaswich will likely fill in for him on Tuesday as he did off the bench the other night and away to Mainz today.
In other news, Former Celtic hero piles pressure on Brendan Rodgers with Saturday goal.
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