Football: Xabi Alonso's Leverkusen feels burden of hunted leader

As it was an inevitable must at this moment Leverkusen coach Xabi Alonso talked about his and his teams mental state If I get nervous now I will be wrecked in May the 42yearold Spanish star coach said We stay positive despite our first game without a goal there might be more coming he added for a reasonAlonsos message in the first place was a message for his players and Bayern fans containing the fact that the race for the 2024 German national title is a marathonlike issueFor the first time Leverkusens game turned to laborious while the first flight lead shrank to only two points ahead of rival Bayern Munich Alonso felt the necessity to keep things calm and easy as he has learned in his career resilience is creating champions reports XinhuaIn time for the decisive encounter against the Bavarians on February 10 on home soil onloan striker Borja Iglesias is delivering a ray of hope But the Betis Sevilla striker still needs to prove his skills after last weekends transfer dealAlso Read Afghanistan name four uncapped players in the squad for Sri Lanka Test Rashid Khan unavailableThe upcoming duel against bottomside Darmstadt seems a more than welcome opportunity one week before crossing swords with Bayern Despite dominating the goalless draw against Gladbach and having to replace reliable scorers such as injured Victor Boniface scoring turned into a problem coming along with the unpleasant feeling of having to lose somethingThe recordsetting 69 contacts in the opponents box might be less concerning than the current performance trend for striker Patrik Schick and his teammates Annoyance is increasing after 945321 passes and 28 spoiled goal chancesWhile Alonso mentioned there are 15 games to go the German leagues only unbeaten side wellequipped with skilful footballers desperately needs a hungry box strikerThe Leverkusen coach is drawing hope and confidence out of his teams stability but at the same time feels the clubs inexperience when it comes to crunchtime issues Our plan is that Iglesias can help us right away The game against Gladbach showed us we sometimes need a ruthless man in the box the Bayer coach statedThe secondment for the Africa Cup of Nations and the Asia Cup have decreased the teams quality as Edmond Tapsoba Burkina Faso Odilon Kossounou Cote dIvoire and Amine Adli Morocco have reached the last16 round Not to speak of the injuries of Exequiel Palacios and BonifaceNevertheless there is no significant reason to lose faith Alonso said as our game remains robust The more the coach is determined to trigger the sureness to stay on track when staying calm and rely on the teams strengthFor a while the 2010 world champion and twotime Champions League winner has prepared for the upcoming crunch time including minor setbacks To spread confidence and sovereignty is part of the sofar successful strategyIts part of the journey that you never win all games but you need to know this doesnt stop you the 2008 and 2012 European champion addedThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever