Leverkusen target Europa League qualification

Posted Saturday, April 22, 2017 by Foxsports.com

It has been a season to forget for Bayer Leverkusen, but midfielder Julian Brandt is confident the German giants can climb the table to a respectable league position.

Leverkusen find themselves in a lowly 12th spot in the Bundesliga, and Brandt was hopeful they can build on their goalless draw last weekend against champions Bayern Munich.

“A lot of teams have failed against Bayern, so this result can definitely be seen as a positive,” Brandt was quoted by the Bundesliga website.

“I think that a point like this one against Bayern is hugely important because in the run up to the game, hardly anyone expected us to have any chance at all,” said the 23-year-old German international.

Their target at the beginning of the season was to take over Borussia Dortmund’s position as Bayern’s main title rivals, but they have failed spectacularly so far, and Brandt attributed this to they’re inability to find any consistency during the course of the season.

“We have never found any consistency and we have barely been able to win a game that wasn’t so good — and that’s vital if you want to be at the top.

“We cut even get the basics right and especially in the first half of the season, we left at lot of points behind us. That eats into your self-confidence…”

While qualifying for the Champions League is completely out of the question right now, Brandt mentioned that they were now trying to get into the Europa League.

“… The Europa League is still doable. It would be good if we can at least get to grips with our problems in the last five games,” he said.