Determined to end Leverkusen’s curious streak of alternating pairs of wins and losses over their last 10 league matches, Gladbach looked the sharper side early on, and they were duly rewarded with less than 10 minutes played.
Aleix Garcia lost possession after being put under pressure by Janis Blaswich’s loose pass, resulting in a shot for Haris Tabakovic. Though Blaswich made the save, he could only palm it into the path of Yannik Engelhardt, who reacted to fire inside the near post from an angle.
Leverkusen didn’t respond particularly well to that setback, and they struggled to string together anything meaningful in the final third. The hosts’ Jens Castrop saw a sweeping shot saved by Blaswich as Gladbach looked for a second, but Leverkusen were instead afforded a slice of luck just before half-time.
Malik Tillman laid it off for Garcia, who tried his luck from the edge of the area. Philipp Sander tried to boot it away, but inadvertently sliced the clearance past Moritz Nicolas and into the top corner of his own net.
Despite the equaliser, Kasper Hjulmand wasn’t afraid to change things at the break, and they almost completed the turnaround moments into the second half when Patrik Schick’s shot clipped the outside of the post.
That short period of pressure soon came to an end though, and it was Gladbach’s turn to have some joy, with a couple of chances for Castrop going begging. Things began to heat up as the game progressed, with the local derby atmosphere certainly playing a part, setting up some end-to-end final exchanges.
The finishing late on was wayward though, and Gladbach were forced to settle for a draw for a third time in their last four matches. The point is unlikely to be satisfactory for Gladbach given their precarious position in the Bundesliga standings, especially as they held a deserved lead for over half an hour.
Despite their up-and-down league form, Leverkusen are now unbeaten in five in all competitions, and have a UEFA Champions League play-off matchup against Olympiacos to look forward to later in the month.
Flashscore Man of the Match: Yannik Engelhardt (Borussia Monchengladbach)
