Gutierrez managed one goal and one assist in 28 Serie A games, and got both in 57 minutes against Leipzig

Miguel Gutierrez spent last season at Napoli producing one goal and one assist in 28 Serie A games. At the BayArena on Sunday he managed both inside 57 minutes, and Bayer Leverkusen beat RB Leipzig 2-0 without ever looking like losing.

It was Leverkusen’s second win of a start that has been hard to read. They lost their opening game of the season, drew with Augsburg, and now sit fifth on seven points after four rounds. Leipzig, who had put five past Hamburg a week earlier, slipped to ninth on six and left the Rhineland with Martin Demichelis fielding the same questions he thought he had answered.

The 26 million euro left-back

Gutierrez arrived from Napoli in the summer for a guaranteed 26 million euros, rising towards 30 million with bonuses, as the direct replacement for Alejandro Grimaldo. Leverkusen had sold Grimaldo to Atletico Madrid for an initial 22 million, so the club spent more on the successor than it banked on the man who left. That is the kind of maths that gets picked over if the new signing takes a while to settle.

He has not taken a while. His cross from the left just before the interval was the sort Grimaldo used to deliver, curling in behind the defensive line, and Patrik Schick stretched out his right foot to turn it in. Twelve minutes into the second half Ibrahim Maza drove a low ball across the face of goal, Ridle Baku half-cleared it, and Gutierrez arrived to poke a finish inside the near post from a position most players do not score from. Bundesliga’s own model put the chance at a 10 per cent conversion probability.

Schick has scored in every game this season

Schick’s goal was his fourth in four matchdays. He has now scored in each of Leverkusen’s opening four league games and is level at the top of the scoring charts with Michael Olise and Yuito Suzuki, off 16 shots. He was not satisfied with it either. “I could have scored a few more,” he said. “But overall, we did a really great job.”

That reads like a striker being polite about a comfortable afternoon, but the underlying numbers back him up. Leverkusen finished on 2.07 expected goals to Leipzig’s 0.78, and Maarten Vandevoordt had to be sharp more than once to keep the margin at two.

Leipzig’s problem is the away days

Leipzig had a goal disallowed on 34 minutes, Christopher Nkunku finishing before VAR ruled him offside, and that was close to the extent of it. Demichelis made four changes from the side that hammered Hamburg, bringing in Baku, Maxime Esteve, Nkunku and Romulo, and the team that turned up bore little resemblance to the one from seven days before.

Two wins and two defeats from four is not a crisis, but the shape of it is becoming recognisable: emphatic at home, blunt away from it. Demichelis was already under scrutiny before the Hamburg result bought him some air, and an afternoon in which his side mustered 0.78 expected goals against a team that had lost its own opening game of the season does not buy much more.

The table is not doing Leverkusen any favours

Fifth place with seven points sounds respectable until you look up. Borussia Dortmund have won all four and have 12 points. Bayern and Freiburg are on 10. Leverkusen’s title chances, such as they were, took their hit on the opening day and they are now playing catch-up in a season where the team above them has not dropped a point.

Carles Martinez Novell, who took charge on 1 July on a deal to 2028, is Leverkusen’s third head coach since Xabi Alonso left in May 2025. Kasper Hjulmand lasted nine months. Martinez has a squad that has beaten Union Berlin and Leipzig, drawn with Augsburg, and lost to Elversberg, which is a set of results that could mean almost anything. Sunday’s version of Leverkusen was the one the club paid 26 million euros for.

Both sides observed a minute’s silence before kick-off for Peter Hermann, the former Leverkusen player and coach.

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