The Bundesliga’s worst defense holds Werder Bremen back

Well, apparently not, because Werder’s defense is even worse this year. Through 17 league matches, they’ve given up a staggering 39 goals. For context, no team in Europe’s top five leagues has done worse than Bremen’s 2.29 goals surrendered per match. The only teams to have given up more total goals -- Cesena and Parma in Italy, and Elche in Spain -- have all played three more matches than Werder, and England’s Queens Park Rangers took 22 matches to give up 39 goals.

It’s been ugly to watch unfold, and it’s little wonder that they’re third from the bottom in the Bundesliga. Their attack has done relatively well, but the defense has been so poor that it doesn’t matter. Heck, their defense has been so bad that even Hamburger SV scored two goals against them, something that the attack-challenged side has only done one other time this season on the way to their shockingly poor nine goal total in 17 matches.

So if Werder is going to stand any chance of staying up this season, especially with Borussia Dortmund surely having to improve at some point this spring, they need to find a way to get their defense playing better. Viktor Skripnik has a tough task ahead of him if he wants to keep his club in the Bundesliga after this season; what can he do to accomplish that without making massive squad changes that Werder just can’t afford to do?

One thing that could help right off the bat would be Skripnik moving away from his near-slavish adherence to a wide diamond in midfield; while it’s made Die Werderaner more effective on the counter-attack, it’s also left them painfully exposed in central midfield too often, leading to long stretches of matches when they simply get overrun thanks to having just one midfielder defending through the middle of the pitch. If Skripnik wants to stick with two strikers up top and an advanced central playmaker behind them, then perhaps moving to a narrow diamond or a flatter 4-3-1-2 type of formation would be the wiser course of action.

Werder have a couple different central mids, specifically Zlatko Junozovic and Cedric Makiadi, who would fit this type of tactic beautifully. Both can kick out wide to support the attack, but in defense would come in narrower to keep the defense stout. Yes, it would mean minimizing the roles of a couple good wide players like Fin Bartels and Clemens Fritz, but if it means not getting relegated that’s a sacrifice Werder Bremen should be willing to make.

It’s going to be a long, hard road for Werder to recover from their first-half struggles. It can be done, but Bremen certainly won’t be returning to the Bundesliga power they were just a decade ago. Still, at this point it’s more about survival than glory, and considering it shouldn’t take that much more for them to be able to stay safe, it’s probably best if Werder simply try again at improving next season.