Rot-Weiss Essen seem to have forgotten how to win for the time being. RWE lost 0:1 (0:0) at Viktoria Köln on Monday evening after a poor performance.

Viktoria Köln celebrated their first win of the new year. After only one point from four games, coach Olaf Janßen’s team won 1-0 (0-0) in the traditional duel against Rot-Weiss Essen at the end of the 22nd matchday.

For RWE, on the other hand, the winless streak continues: The promoted team has now waited seven games for a three-game win. During this time, there have been five draws and two defeats – 0:3 in Elversberg and 0:1 at Viktoria.

In front of 4604 spectators at Sportpark Höhenberg – among them 2,000 Essen fans – veteran Mike Wunderlich scored the decisive goal (50th). RWE winger Isaiah Young was shown the yellow card in the 68th minute. Young had already been shown the yellow card after five minutes.

All in all, it was a very weak third league match. RWE were unable to create any goal-scoring opportunities worth mentioning in a decent opening phase. And that’s how it was to remain.

Even after Wunderlich’s 1:0 goal, Rot-Weiss could not quite find their way into the game. Scoring chances were scarce on the red-white side. The Essen team could thank Cologne’s weak counter-attacking to prevent Viktoria from closing the scoring before the end of the game.

“We set ourselves a lot of goals. We wanted to be intense and active. But that was not a good performance from us,” RWE coach Christoph Dabrowski summed up to “Magenta TV”.

The 43-year-old football coach went on to say: “We have reached a point again where we have to remember what made us strong. Those are the basic virtues. We now have to make sure that we go into the derby against Dortmund with a top performance. We need more intensity, more power, more bite.” wozi with dpa