Matchday 9 of the Bundesliga kicked off with Borussia Dortmund grinding out a 1-0 win against Augsburg in Bavaria, and Saturday afternoon was the turn of fellow top-four hopefuls RB Leipzig and Stuttgart, who faced off at the Red Bull Arena.

Further down the table, Borussia Mönchengladbach travelled to St.Pauli, Union Berlin hosted Freiburg, Heidenheim were against Eintracht Frankfurt, and Mainz were against Werder Bremen. 

Here are the three things we learnt:

Borussia Mönchengladbach win their first Bundesliga game of the season:

Seven months and three days, that is how long it was between Gladbach’s most recent Bundesliga wins. 

The last win was a 1-0 against RB Leipzig on March 29th, which cost Marco Rose his job. 

Following a 3-1 win against Karlsruhe in midweek, die Fohlen continued and beat St.Pauli, rather convincingly. Haris Tabakovic scored twice and assisted once, to continue his recent hot streak, meaning he now has five goals in eight games. Shuto Machino scored his first Bundesliga goal for the club, and Oscar Fraulo scored his first-ever goal for the club. 

Florian Neuhaus also continued his revival under head coach Eugen Polanski. After the Mallorca incident, the midfielder was exciled to the under-23s, but since Polanski’s promotion to interim head coach, Neuhaus has been reintegrated, and today he looked at his best. 

Not only did he provide an assist for Tabakovic’s opener, but he also played a great long ball into the path of the Bosnian, who teed up Machino to make it 3-0. On top of this, via FotMob, the 28-year-old created three chances, the joint highest in the game alongside Franck Honorat. 

Next up for Gladbach in the Bundesliga – 1.FC Köln, the Rhein Derby

RB Leipzig show their quality:

Since Leipzig’s 6-0 thrashing at the hands of Bayern Munich on the opening day, they have since gone unbeaten, drawing only won game since – a 1-1 draw with Borussia Dortmund. 

Against VfB Stuttgart, it was their next big test, and they passed, with flying colours, beating the Swabians 3-1. Granted, two mistakes from Stuttgart helped Leipzig, with a Jeff Chabot own goal to break the deadlock and a big howler from Alexander Nübel when trying to play it out from the back to allow Romulo to score. 

However, Leipzig were still much more effective in front of goal and put in a strong defensive performance to limit Stuttgart’s chances. 

All eyes will once again be on Yan Diomande. The Ivorian forced the Chabot’s only goal with his cutback, and he scored his second Bundesliga goal to make it 2-1. In the summer, the €20m that Leipzig spent on the 18-year-old seemed like a lot, considering how little he had played for Leganes, but it already looks to be paying off. 

The Bundesliga relegation battle is shaken up:

We are now 25% of our way through the season, so we can now start to be more absolute with some of the things we say without a caveat of ‘it’s still early’, one of those things is the battle to avoid relegation. 

Gladbach’s win and Augsburg’s loss on Friday night have made the battle to avoid relegation very tight.

Today, Mainz played out a 1-1 draw with Werder Bremen, Heidenheim drew 1-1 with Frankfurt, and St.Pauli lost to Gladbach. This now means from 14th to 18th in the table, there is only a three-point difference and considering no team actually looks either good enough to build any sort of form to lift themselves out of the relegation places, it looks as if it will be a nice scrap as the season progresses.

Elsewhere in the Bundesliga:

• The only other game not to be covered is Union Berlin vs Freiburg. Which ended 0-0, both teams had goals disallowed, and both teams firmly sit in mid-table.