Without the quick central defenders Jeremiah St. Juste and Moussa Niakhaté, Mainz 05 were overstretched against Union Berlin. “We are running on fumes,” said sporting director Christian Heidel in reference to the personnel options.
With a top speed of 36.63 kilometres per hour, St. Juste is the fastest Bundesliga player of the current season. Niakhaté is still 15th with 34.93. No other Bundesliga team has two such nimble central defenders in its ranks. This contributes to the fact that the 05ers, after conceding only five goals in seven games, still have the best defence in the league, on a par with SC Freiburg. However, they conceded three of them in the last two games.
What can happen when the duo is not on the pitch was proven by the 1:2 against Union. “We lost because of the genius of a Max Kruse and the pace of Taiwo Awoniyi,” Heidel noted. In the latter’s double strike, neither Silvan Widmer nor David Nemeth could follow the Berliner, who used to play in Mainz.
“We lost because of the genius of a Max Kruse and the pace of Taiwo Awoniyi. “
CHRISTIAN HEIDEL
Heidel has a quarrel with the VAR and his line
Whereby the 2:1 for Union was preceded by a very close decision by the Cologne keeper, who stated that Awoniyi had not been offside. The TV images, which are not entirely sharp, do not provide any precise information as to whether Awoniyi’s knee was really closer to the Mainz goal than the decisive body parts of David Nemeth, as presented by Heidel with the chest tone of conviction: “It is offside, we have looked at it twice. The problem is that they drew the calibrated line based on Nemeth’s arm, that was just wrong. “
“It’s offside, we’ve looked at it twice. The problem is that they drew the calibrated line based on Nemeth’s arm, that was just wrong. “
CHRISTIAN HEIDEL
Nemeth had unexpectedly made his Bundesliga debut in the 20th minute when St Juste left the pitch with a dislocated shoulder. Similar injuries have kept the Dutchman out of action several times at his previous station. He dislocated his right shoulder back in August 2019 after his move to FSV, which was treated conservatively at the time, and the break was short. “He has a loose shoulder. We will have an MRI done, then it will be decided whether surgery will be done or it will be treated conservatively, which we hope for. It hurts us a lot that the next centre-back is out,” said sporting director Martin Schmidt.
Niakhaté reports back
After all, Niakhaté made his return from a thigh injury when he came on as a 76th-minute substitute. From coach Bo Svensson’s point of view, a 70-minute match was still “too risky”, which is why Nemeth was preferred after St. Juste’s absence. Alexander Hack is out due to a positive COVID-19 test. “We were very lucky in the second half of the season that we actually didn’t have any injuries, now we are severely shaken. We are running on fumes,” said Heidel.
