Pre-season has finally delivered the one thing it had somehow avoided so far: a defeat. Bayer 04 lost 2–1 at Nottingham Forest, our first loss in the sixth friendly of the summer, and I am not going to pretend that a defeat in mid-August has ruined my week. At the same time, this was the sort of game that reminds you very quickly that preparation results may not matter much, but performances still tell you something. And what this one told me is that Carles Martínez still has quite a bit of work ahead of him before the serious business begins. Bayer went behind after only four minutes, levelled through Patrik Schick just after the half-hour mark and then looked set to leave the City Ground with a draw before Arnaud Kalimuendo headed in the winner in the 90th minute. Losing with virtually the last action always feels slightly more annoying than it probably deserves to in a friendly. You spend half the match telling yourself the result is irrelevant, only to discover in the final minute that apparently it is not quite as irrelevant as you thought.
Martínez had changed seven positions from the 2–1 win over Sevilla, which obviously matters when judging the performance. Only Loïc Badé, Jeanuel Belocian, Ezequiel Fernández and Ibrahim Maza kept their places, while Miguel Gutiérrez made his first start after appearing from the bench against Sevilla. The opening was certainly not what Bayer had planned. Morgan Gibbs-White was allowed to deliver from the right and Dan Ndoye finished the move to put Forest ahead. Again, nobody needs to start searching for a crisis after four minutes of a pre-season game, but I would still prefer us not to make conceding early goals a summer tradition. Bayer eventually found a response. Ernest Poku had an effort blocked after good work from Malik Tillman, and Schick headed just wide from a Gutiérrez cross. Then came the equaliser. Badé stopped a Forest counter, Fernández played Schick through and the Czech striker finished beautifully with a lob. There is something reassuring about Schick at the moment. Against Sevilla he came off the bench and scored twice, and now he has delivered again. While other parts of the team are still searching for rhythm, Schick appears to have decided that his own preparation consists mainly of putting the ball in the net. I can live with that approach.
The problem was that after the equaliser, the game never really developed into a convincing Bayer performance. Martínez changed three players at half-time, bringing on Edmond Tapsoba, Tim Oermann and Afonso Moreira, while Forest replaced their entire eleven. That alone made the second half feel like what it was: a pre-season match in which rhythm was always going to be difficult to maintain. Still, from a Leverkusen point of view, it became rather flat. Forest created the clearest opportunity when Nicolás Domínguez forced Janis Blaswich into a very good fingertip save from a corner, while Martínez tried to inject more energy into Bayer’s attacking game with Christian Kofane, Jonas Hofmann, Aleix Garcia and eventually Victor Boniface. Yet it remained hard work. There were plenty of fresh legs but not enough fresh ideas. That is perhaps the biggest concern I take from the match. The issue was not a lack of attacking names on the pitch. Bayer had options. What was missing was the ability to turn possession and changes of personnel into sustained pressure and clear chances.
Then, just when the draw looked inevitable, Luca Netz sent in a free-kick and Kalimuendo got the decisive touch with his head. 2–1, 90th minute, game over. Annoying? Yes. A disaster? Obviously not. But I suspect Martínez will find more useful material in this defeat than he would have found in another comfortable win. We have now seen similar themes in consecutive games. Against Sevilla, Bayer needed time and substitutions before the attack really came alive. Against Forest, the breakthrough after going behind again came through Schick, but this time there was no second-half turnaround. That does not mean the team is going backwards. It does mean that the attacking structure is not yet functioning consistently enough. There are too many phases in which Bayer look tidy without looking threatening. Passing the ball around is not the same thing as controlling a football match, and having several talented attacking players on the pitch is not automatically the same thing as having an effective attack.
The final test at Newcastle United now becomes particularly interesting. Not because I desperately need Bayer to win a pre-season match in England, but because it is the last opportunity to sharpen things before the first competitive game at Wehen Wiesbaden. By then, the experimentation phase has to start turning into something more recognisable. Martínez does not need a finished masterpiece, but he does need clearer patterns, greater attacking fluency and a team that looks ready to punish mistakes rather than merely waiting for Schick to solve the problem. There are positives: Schick is scoring, Fernández again played an important part in the equaliser, Gutiérrez is getting minutes and Martínez is learning plenty about his squad. But this was also a useful little warning. The season is getting closer, and friendly excuses have an expiry date.
So I am not worried about losing 2–1 to Nottingham Forest. I am more interested in why we lost it. Right now, Bayer 04 still look like a team with plenty of quality but not yet enough certainty in how to use it. That is acceptable in pre-season. In a few weeks, it will not be. And if Patrik Schick could kindly continue scoring while everyone else works that out, I certainly would not object.
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