Mohya scores and assists as Gladbach win 3-2 at Stuttgart to avoid unwanted record

Borussia Mönchengladbach won 3-2 at VfB Stuttgart on Friday night, their first win of the Bundesliga season after six defeats in six games. A seventh would have been a record: no team has ever lost its first seven Bundesliga matches. It was also the first win for coach Alexander Blessin, who took over from Eugen Polanski in September.

A bad start, then a backheel

Stuttgart went ahead after five minutes. Dzenan Pejcinovic headed a second ball into the path of Ermedin Demirovic, whose shot from 22 metres went into the top corner past Gladbach goalkeeper Moritz Nicolas, who got a hand to it but should have kept it out. Nicolas then saved from Lorenz Assignon on 17 minutes, and Gladbach had only 37% of the ball after half an hour.

The equaliser came in the visitors' best spell, while Stuttgart midfielder Angelo Stiller was being treated off the pitch after a collision. On 38 minutes Joe Scally turned Zento Uno's shot in with a backheel. Wael Mohya hit the bar just before half-time.

Mohya decides it

The 17-year-old Mohya made the difference after the break. On 51 minutes he shook off Assignon and crossed for Shuto Machino, who put Gladbach 2-1 up. Stuttgart coach Sebastian Hoeneß brought on Deniz Undav, Bilal El Khannouss and Jamie Leweling and switched to a back three, but on 66 minutes Mohya scored himself, from Scally's pass, for 3-1.

Demirovic headed in his second goal on 83 minutes, from a Leweling assist, and El Khannouss had a chance to equalise in stoppage time, but Nicolas saved it.

Mohya had also scored in the 2-1 home defeat by Hoffenheim. According to Opta, he is the fourth-youngest player to score in consecutive Bundesliga games. "A weight has been lifted from all our hearts today," he said. "It's great, of course, we all earned it."

Ten players missing

Gladbach played without ten first-team players, including defender Kevin Diks, who missed the game at short notice for private reasons. Tim Kleindienst, Ko Itakura, Franck Honorat and Nicolas Kühn were also among the absentees. "Complaining doesn't help," Blessin told Sky before kick-off. "We will have to suffer and go beyond our limits."

Afterwards, sporting director Rouven Schröder said the club had finally "arrived in the league". "The whole club can now just breathe again," he said. Blessin, who was born in Stuttgart's Bad Cannstatt district, said he was proud of his team but warned: "We cannot rest on this." Gladbach host Karlsruher SC in the second round of the DFB-Pokal on Tuesday.

What it changes

The win does not lift Gladbach off the bottom: they have 3 points from seven games, two behind Union Berlin, Paderborn and Schalke, who all play on Saturday. For Stuttgart it was a fifth league defeat in seven games, three days after a 1-1 draw with Atlético Madrid in the Champions League. Hoeneß had made six changes to his starting line-up, resting Undav and centre-back Jeff Chabot, and Stuttgart stay on 6 points in 14th place.