Saturday afternoon’s Bundesliga defeat in Breisgau certainly wasn’t the debut newly appointed Werder Bremen head coach Daniel Thioune was hoping for. The 10-game-winless streak that led to the dismissal of Horst Steffen has now been extended to 11. Bremen’s 1-0 away defeat against SC Freiburg leaves the team without a win in three months. More distressingly, the result sends Bremen down to the 16th-place promotion relegation playoff place. 

Werder Bremen failed to capitalize on the man advantage

Freiburg’s Johan Manzambi’s 52nd-minute sending off meant that the Hanseatic guests had more than enough time to grab an equalizer. Thioune’s team not only failed in this regard, but were lucky not to have fallen farther behind. Freiburg’s Yuito Suzuki appeared to have doubled the advantage in the 78th-minute, but saw his 2-0 disallowed due to what appeared to be a very soft foul on Felix Agu. 

Thioune comments on the performance 

“After the red card, we lacked the conviction to see it through to the end,” Thioune remarked in his post match interview with Sky Germany. “I think you could see that the team isn’t mentally ready to cope with this kind of situation.”

Marco Friedl sounds the alarm

Bremen’s relatively young captain has never been one to sugarcoat a rough situation. When Bremen found themselves the only top flight German footballing outfit to be dumped out of the opening round of the DFB Pokal, Marco Friedl called out club management for the manner in which they handled the summer transfer window. The 27-year-old was at it again when speaking to Sky this time. 

“We’re looking at a rude awakening,” Friedl said. “As harsh as it sounds, [insofar as the table is concerned] we’re finally back where we belong. Our opponents let us in week after week, but we lack confidence.

“There has to be a change,” Friedl continued. “I can’t sit here week after week and say the same thing. It will just continue like this and at the end of the day we’ll be left standing there, looking at each other and wondering what happened.”