Bitter home defeat

VfB Stuttgart were unable to maintain the momentum from the game they game from behind to win against Borussia Mönchengladbach and, on Saturday, crashed to a 1-4 home defeat at the hands of 1. FC Nürnberg. 

Early setback

VfB coach Bruno Labbadia made four changes to his side from last weekend’s win, with Matthieu De,pierre, Zdravko Kuzmanovic, Elson and Tamas Hajnal beginning in place of Georg Niedermeier, Christian Gentner, Arthur Boka and Timo Gebhart. There were early chances at both ends but, with just eleven minutes on the clock, the visitors took a 0-1 lead through Timmy Simons, who drove a low shot unstoppably past Sven Ulreich. The home side attempted to hit back quickly but, in the 28t minute, VfB’s own Julian Schieber, who is on loan at FCN, bustled past Serdar Tasci to get his head to a Timothy Chandler delivery. The guests could have trebled the difference just five minutes before the break but Wolf was unable to keep his header on target. With the half all but over, VfB won a corner from the right, which was initially cleared, but only as far as Patrick Funk, who let fly from 25 meters out and, with the help of a slight deflection, beat Raphael Schäfer to make it 1-2 going into the break.