Xabi Alonso's Bayer Leverkusen struggling to maintain heights of last season

Berlin: Bayer Leverkusen is struggling to reach the high standards it set for itself last season. Xabi Alonso s team has already dropped points in...

Berlin: Bayer Leverkusen is struggling to reach the high standards it set for itself last season.

Xabi Alonso’s team has already dropped points in five of its nine Bundesliga games, while Tuesday’s 4-0 loss at Liverpool in the Champions League was already its second defeat of the season.

The late goals that characterized last season’s remarkable Bundesliga and German Cup campaigns - Leverkusen won both without losing a game - seem to have dried up.

Leverkusen has already conceded 15 goals in the Bundesliga. That’s only nine goals fewer than it conceded in the league over the whole of last season. Though Leverkusen drew with Bayern Munich 1-1 away, it also failed to beat relegation candidates Holstein Kiel and Werder Bremen.

The aura of invincibility that Alonso built around the team has evaporated. But it’s not for want of trying. Before the Liverpool game, Leverkusen had 19 shots at goal in a scoreless draw against Stuttgart, which was second in the Bundesliga last season.