Falling giants? Werder Bremen, Wolfsburg and Gladbach circle Bundesliga drain | Bundesliga

“We currently have zero self-confidence,” lamented Marco Friedl, “and it shows.” Werder Bremen had just come to the end of a 13th successive winless game and there was a sense that they didn’t realise that the bottom was quite this low – if indeed they are quite there. “I often have the right words, but today I’m pretty much speechless because I couldn’t have imagined the game ending like this.”

It is difficult to predict quite how this season will finish at the bottom of the Bundesliga but it feels like it has a big ending in store, with at least one big name set to tumble. This felt like a big moment for Bremen, the 2004 double winners, in freefall for months and unable to find the decisive moment away to St Pauli as Sunday evening drew in.

They looked like the better team for the best part of an hour but they weren’t the more poised; the young goalkeeper Mio Backhaus, one of the rare beacons of hope in a wretched season, almost inexplicably allowed a Hauke Wahl header through him for the opening goal and despite a Jovan Milosevic equaliser a smooth, coherent home move was finished by Joel Fujita for the winner. A winner which, significantly, took St Pauli above Werder, pushing them into the bottom two synonymous with automatic relegation.

Having looked next to gone a few short weeks back, successive home wins have now taken Alexander Blessin’s team to 20 points which, remarkably, is the same as Wolfsburg. The 2009 champions had felt as if they were reviving in recent matches, despite not winning, with a deserved draw at Leipzig last week following an excellent but unrewarded display against Borussia Dortmund in their last home game. But the Volkswagen Arena has been a miserable place for The wolves this term; with a mere nine points from 12 games theirs is the worst home record in the Bundesliga and having led Augsburg with less than six minutes of normal time to go, they were beaten by their own academy product Elvis Rexhbecaj’s low drive deep into stoppage time.

If this column has suggested in recent weeks that Bremen might have stayed attached to a glorious past for too long, then the same could be said of Wolfsburg. Their sporting director, Pirmin Schwegler, confirmed after the game that the talk of the board attempting to bring back Edin Dzeko, one of the architects of the 2009 Championship trophy who will turn 40 in less than a month, was actually true. “Edin is a legend here,” he told Sky. “There was contact and there were talks, but we respect his decision.” That decision was to instead join Schalke’s push to escape the second tier, talking of fallen giants (with four goals and three assists for Dzeko in five games for the 2. Bundesliga leaders, it already looks like the sound choice).

Dzeko’s residual affection for his former club is clear; earlier in the week he had paid a visit, reconnecting with familiar faces and showing his children around the trophy room that he helped to populate. If the explanation for not re-signing was that he was already deep into discussions with Schalke (with their Bosnian contingent of coach, Miron Muslic, and the former Rangers defender Nikola Katic rolling out the red carpet), one would not blame the striker if he thought it was best to avoid sullying an impeccable history.

For there is no avoiding that Wolfsburg are a mess. Schwegler was only appointed in December but already has an overflowing in-tray. Should he now stick with the interim coach, Daniel Bauer, or parachute in a relegation firefighter like former manager Dieter Hecking? Thomas Reis, harshly sacked by Samsunspor, and the ex-Eintracht Frankfurt coach Dino Toppmöller are also options.

If there is any consolation for Schwegler it is that his club are not alone in furiously treading water to stay afloat. On Saturday, Borussia Mönchengladbach had been booed by their travelling fans after they stretched their own sequence without a victory to seven at Freiburg, where they too had experienced the indignity of a former player coming back to haunt them, Matthias Ginter rattling in the home side’s opener and then raising his palms apologetically.

Gladbach already made their move on the bench, voting for Eugen Polanski, but that new coach bounce has well and truly left Borussia-Park. “It’s alarming,” he admitted. “We can all read and do the maths.” With the results being the be-all-and-end-all there were no statistics to comfort them; not their 63% possession and not their greater amount of shots. Other games had felt “closer”, the Freiburg coach, Julian Schuster, let slip to Dazn. Until a final flurry, Gladbach had looked blunt. The bottom six is now as tight as can be above Heidenheim. Only three points separate Mainz in 13th and Bremen in 17th, and you wouldn’t trust any of them as far as you can throw them.

Of the three, Werder’s moment of truth is likely to come first, and not just because of their fall to second-bottom here. They welcome the only team below them, Heidenheim, to the Weserstadion next week and it really does feel like win or go home. Frank Schmidt’s team are the only ones that really look stranded in this tightest of relegation battles, trailing Werder by five points and with only three wins all season, the last one having been at the beginning of December. Yet Heidenheim showed this weekend that even if they might not be able to save themselves, they have enough in the tank to make life difficult for others, with their thrilling 3-3 draw with Stuttgart on Sunday night a reminder that there is still fight (and flair) in the dog. Besides Werder, Wolfsburg and Gladbach have a lot more to lose.

Talking points

• Just two points above the pack are Cologne, who drew 2-2 with high-flying Hoffenheim, a creditable outcome. Ragnar Ache’s spectacular overhead-kick opener, a goal of the season contender, wasn’t over-celebrated, with a subdued atmosphere after a 90-year-old supporter fell down a staircase; sadly, he later died in hospital.

• Ahead of The classic next week the six-point gap between Bayern Munich and Dortmund has widened to eight again after the former’s win over Eintracht Frankfurt and the latter’s draw at RB Leipzig, but that didn’t really feel like the headline in either case. In Munich the focus was on Vincent Kompany after his stirring pre-match press conference, pushing back on José Mourinho’s words on the Vinícius Júnior incident with his trademark clarity and class. “I was deeply moved by what Vinny said in those 12 minutes,” said his sporting director, Max Eberl. “I’ve had the privilege of knowing him for over a year and a half now. He’s an extraordinary person.” Back on the field BVB felt like they had something to celebrate despite not quite keeping pace, coming back from 2-0 down to draw at Leipzig with Fábio Silva’s first Bundesliga goal, extending their unbeaten run in the league to 16.

• After their great win at Olympiakos in midweek Bayer Leverkusen took another step back with defeat in Berlin, with former Unioner Robert Andrich making the error than allowed Rani Khedira to lob the winner. “I got it all wrong in that moment,” admitted the captain, and The Werkself can thank Dortmund and Heidenheim for their gap to Stuttgart and Leipzig in fourth and fifth only being four and two points respectively.