STUTTGART, Germany – Stuttgart moved up to seventh in the Bundesliga table with a solid 2-0 win over St. Pauli on Saturday, extending their run of home games without a draw to 16 matches in the process.
The home side thought they was ahead after just three minutes when Ermedin Demirović headed in from Angelo Stiller’s free-kick, but the goal got ruled out for offside. St. Pauli could of had a great chance to take the lead themselves but 19-year-old Finn Jeltsch made a brilliant sliding tackle to stop Andréas Hountondji’s cross reaching Mathias Pereira Lage.
Stuttgart got handed a golden opportunity on 23 minutes when Tiago Tomás went on a brilliant run into the box and got brought down by captain Eric Smith. There wasn’t loads of contact but the referee pointed to the spot. Stiller stepped up but completely wasted the chance, placing his penalty nowhere near the corner and making it easy for Nikola Vasilj to save.
The midfielder was clearly still thinking about that miss because he had another great chance later in the half but passed up the opportunity to shoot first time. Instead he tried to work his way inside and Vasilj stopped him again, leaving the home fans frustrated.
Just when it looked like the first half would end goalless, Demirović popped up with a lovely goal right before the break. He held onto the ball well after getting it from Jamie Leweling, beat Smith with some nice footwork and dinked it over Vasilj for a well-taken opener.
Stuttgart wasn’t content to just defend their lead and made it 2-0 five minutes into the second half. Leweling’s cross got diverted by Demirović and fell perfectly for Leicester loanee Bilal El Khannouss, who stroked it home beautifully for his first goal at the club.
St. Pauli tried to hit back straight away and Louis Oppie smashed one off the crossbar with a half-volley, then Alexander Nübel had to push away Pereira Lage’s shot. At the other end Vasilj made a good save to stop Demirović getting his second goal, then Stiller had another goal ruled out because Demirović was offside again.
Alexander Blessin brought on Dapo Afolayan and Martijn Kaars to try and get St. Pauli back into the game. They nearly combined for a goal but Nübel made a brilliant save to deny Afolayan and keep the clean sheet intact.
That was about as close as St. Pauli got and they suffered their first defeat of the season, missing the chance to go top of the table. For Stuttgart this was exactly the kind of professional performance they needed to climb up the league standings.
