Despite the much-celebrated last-minute winning goal, the game in Piraeus did not produce only winners. Aymen Barkok put in a worryingly weak performance on the right wing, while striker Sam Lammers also managed virtually nothing. Coach Oliver Glasner however explicitly came to the attacker’s defence at the press conference on Friday morning, backing him up.
It is probably no coincidence that Eintracht only started to act a little better and more stable when Barkok and Lammers were no longer on the pitch. Glasner watched the duo’s conspicuously weak performance for just under an hour before bringing on Jesper Lindström (for Lammers) and Almamy Toure. In Barkok’s case, it bordered on a miracle that he was not sent off in the 31st minute. In an unintentional but brutal foul, he hit Piraeus left-back Oleg Reabciuk with an open sole above the ankle. A clear red card, but Barkok surprisingly got off with a yellow.
The trained attacking midfielder had provided a breath of fresh air last weekend against Leipzig (1:1) as a wild card on the right in the three/five-man backline, so it was understandable that Glasner ordered him into the first eleven this time. But Barkok did not use his chance, the speed dribbler, who was trained in his own youth, played too many inaccurate balls and was clumsy in the duels. According to the data provider Opta, he won only eleven percent of his duels. Nevertheless, Glasner still spoke of a “mixed” performance.
Lammers wins only 17 percent of his duels
In the attack, Lammers also missed his chance. The Dutchman clearly dropped in comparison to the dynamic Rafael Borré, looked lethargic (tackling rate 17 percent) and made an inexplicable number of bad passes. In this condition, the player on loan from Bergamo is no help, and Lammers did not radiate any goal-scoring ability. “Sam is going through a difficult time right now,” Glasner admits. The coach points out that the attacker had shoulder surgery in the spring and was only signed on the last day of the transfer period. “He couldn’t train for a while and wasn’t in rhythm. Then he came here with great hope, was supposed to work from day one and be the top scorer. It didn’t work out that way and left its mark on him,” explains Glasner.
However, he is still convinced of the basic quality of the 1.91-metre tall but not particularly strong header. “Sam is a very fine footballer, a very good technician, and he has a really good finish with his left and right. But at the moment – you have to be honest – he doesn’t show that enough. But that doesn’t mean we doubt him,” the Austrian explains. He wants to try to “tease out” Lammer’s strengths again so that he can find his “old strength”: “We will support him and give him solutions so that he can integrate himself even better into our game. What he needs now is a sense of achievement, a goal or an assist, so that he can get his footballing lightness back.” That would be eminently important for the whole team, because the happy 2-1 win in Piraeus can’t hide the fact that this season there is too often a lack of penetrating power up front.
