SAM DOUBLE SINKS FÜRTH
Leverkusen - Bayer 04 Leverkusen made light work of SpVgg Greuther Fürth with a comfortable 2-0 win at the BayArena on Saturday.
Same old story
Second-half substitute Sidney Sam got the goals to pile on the misery for Mike Büskens' strugglers, in a thoroughly one-sided affair.
Looking to fill their boots against the Bavarian strugglers, Leverkusen found chances hard to come by in the early stages. The returning Karim Bellarabi was seeing plenty of possession on the right-hand side, but Fürth's heel-snapping banks of four were doing a good job at restricting the space for the lively Leverkusen winger.
The first half ambled to a close in similar fashion, with Leverkusen - as they have failed to do for much of the season so far - unable to convert promising periods of keep-ball into chances. The half didn't entirely pass Fürth by, though, as left-back Manuel Schmidtgal bundled to the byline, only to loft a chipped effort past the far post when a simple ball across goal looked the better option.
Sam the man
Sami Hyypia's decision to replace Bellarabi with the more direct Sidney Sam turned out to be an inspired piece of tinkering as the Leverkusen substitute led a blistering counter and kept a cool head to tuck the ball under Max Grün for 1-0. Die Werkself should have been further ahead three minutes later, but Stefan Kießling dallied for far too long in front of goal.
The home fans were celebrating again before too long, with another counter proving Fürth's undoing. Sam ripped a hole in the Fürth back four, and finished the move by stroking Dani Carvajal's pass into the bottom corner. Grün stuck out a boot to prevent Kießling from adding a third, as Leverkusen coasted across the finish line after a routine afternoon's work.
Line-ups and statistics
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