Leverkusen's home fall to Stuttgart lays bare the post-Alonso gap

Bayer Leverkusen lost at home for the first time this season on 31 October, beaten 4-2 by a VfB Stuttgart side that had won only twice in seven league games. Ermedin Demirović scored twice, Jamie Leweling and Bilal El Khannouss added the others, and although Patrik Schick and Ibrahim Maza replied, the BayArena saw a home defeat that leaves both clubs on 13 points.

The result is one match. The wider picture is harder to ignore. Under Xabi Alonso in 2023/24, Leverkusen took 2.65 points per game across a 28-win, six-draw, unbeaten Bundesliga season. Under Carles Martínez Novell in 2026/27, the return is 1.63 points per game from eight matches, a record of four wins, one draw and three defeats. That is not a slump measured in weeks. It is a different team.

Leverkusen had 63 per cent possession, 24 shots to Stuttgart's 15, and 12 corners to three. They also lost by two goals. The raw volume flatters them less than it first appears: their expected goals of 1.79 came against an average of 2.77 across their earlier 2026/27 matches in all competitions, and their open-play xG of 1.08 was well down on an average of 1.94. Stuttgart, with 37 per cent of the ball, generated 2.61 xG and five big chances to Leverkusen's three.

That is the difference between territory and threat. Leverkusen's 46 touches in the opposition box and 54 duels won were both above their earlier-season averages of 34.4 and 34.8, and their 12 corners were up on an average of seven. The process was not passive. The finishing and the defending were the problem, and the scoreline reflected the chances rather than the possession.

Martínez Novell made five changes from the midweek DFB Cup win, including a first Bundesliga start in two months for Lucas Vázquez. Stuttgart were without Angelo Stiller, out with an adductor injury, and Leo Sauer, out with a muscular problem. Neither absence stopped them scoring four.

The temptation is to pin everything on Alonso's departure. The available facts do not support that on their own. Leverkusen have also turned over their squad, with Kennet Eichhorn, Facundo Medina, Aleksa Damjanović, Guéla Doué, Miguel Gutiérrez and Luca Erlein arriving since the summer, and Exequiel Palacios, Andrea Natali, Ferdinand Pohl, Matěj Kovár, Alejo Sarco and Emmanuel Chigozie Owen leaving. Officials have not said how those changes were intended to fit together, and no single departure explains a four-goal home defeat.

What can be said is that the balance Alonso's side had — control without sterility, pressure without exposure — has not yet returned under a coach whose background is at Barcelona's La Masia and Toulouse. Martínez Novell's team can dominate the ball and still concede four. That is the question the next matches will answer: whether this is a transition still finding its shape, or a structural drop from the level of 2023/24.

Stuttgart's win may matter as much to them as it does to Leverkusen. A side with two wins in seven league games, knocked out of the DFB Pokal by Paderborn, arrived at the BayArena and scored four. Whether that is a turning point for their domestic season is not yet known. For Leverkusen, the concern is simpler and more urgent: the points return is nearly a full point per game below the Alonso standard, and the home record now includes a defeat to a team that had been struggling. The gap between past success and current reality is no longer a talking point. It is the table.