Sommer’s heroics not enough as Gladbach left looking over their shoulder | Andy Brassell

The Switzerland goalkeeper saved two penalties but Borussia Mönchengladbach still lost out to old rivals Bayer Leverkusen

He should have been a hero for a second straight week, but that’s just not how things are working out for Borussia Mönchengladbach right now. Yann Sommer had already flexed his considerable goalkeeping muscles last week, keeping Bayern Munich at bay to help bring home a famous win. This week, the Switzerland star perhaps even bettered himself.

In Saturday’s late game with Bayer Leverkusen, a perennial rival for the Champions League places in recent years, Sommer saved not one but two penalties in the second half, and they were both great stops, first plunging to his right to deny Patrik Schick and then later to his left to fingertip Kerem Demirbay’s effort. He became the first goalkeeper to deny two penalties in a Bundesliga game since FC Nürnberg’s Raphael Schäfer kept out efforts from Domi Kumbela and Ermin Bicakcic in February 2014. The difference there was that Schäfer’s heroics helped Nürnberg win the game. For Sommer despite that and another of other stops, notably an excellent double save from Amine Adli to keep hope flickering for Gladbach as time ran out, there was no such reward.