Niclas Füllkrug scored his first goal in four games as Werder Bremen beat Bochum 3-0 on Saturday to put 11 points between the two sides.

Werder Bremen 3-0 Bochum
Goals: 1-0 Füllkrug 29' (assist: Jung), 2-0 Schmidt 43' (assist: Jung), 3-0 Ducksch 59'

While hosts Werder made three changes to their side from their previous outing, Bochum switched it up with five new faces as both sides sought much-needed victories. As you may expect from two teams who have struggled in recent weeks, the opening exchanges were tentative and light on goalmouth action. But, in Füllkrug, Werder have a striker who needs just one sight of goal to strike and he did just that on the half-hour mark, pouncing in the box to fire home the opener. Werder were 2-0 to the good on the stroke of half time thanks to Niklas Schmidt's finish after first starting his team's counter-attack from within his own half and then rounding off a slick move having been excellently found by Anthony Jung, who also provided Füllkrug's opener.

Bochum were in need of a fairly monumental effort to turn things around but continued to lack penetration in the final third. And, on the hour mark, Bremen had a third. After they were awarded a free-kick on the edge of the away side's box, Marvin Ducksch stepped up for the home team to fire under the wall and into the back of the net. Bochum remained full of effort throughout but were short on quality in attack and couldn't find a way to test Jiri Pavlenka in the Werder goal. In fact, it was Ole Werner's side that looked most likely adding to their tally but they ultimately settled on a richly deserved victory that, for the time being at least, propels Werder into the top half and drops Bochum back into the bottom two.

Match stats

• Füllkrug had gone three matches without victory going into Matchday 22, but scored his 14th goal of the season - the most in the German top flight in 2022/23.
• Leonardo Bittencourt made his 100th appearance in all competitions for Bremen.
• Jung had two league assists this season before kick-off and had doubled that tally to four by full-time.
• Ducksch's strike was his fifth of the league campaign.
• Bochum have won just one of 34 Bundesliga visits to Bremen: a 2-1 triumph on 3 February 2008.
• Bochum's one win in 12 away games in the Bundesliga this term, combined with 11 defeats, represents the worst record in the division.

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Teams

Bremen: Pavlenka - Pieper (Chiarodia 90+1'), Veljkovic, Friedl (c) - Bittencourt, Schmidt (Schmid 77'), Groß (Philipp 90+1'), Stage (Gruev 82'), Jung - Füllkrug, Ducksch (Dinkci 82')
Unused subs: Zetterer, Buchanan, Dietrich, Berger
Out: Agu (patella tendon), Mbom (calf), Stark (suspended), Weiser (ankle)
Coach: Ole Werner

Bochum: Riemann (c) - Osei-Tutu, Lampropoulos (Förster 46'), Schlotterbeck, Stafylidis - Kunde (Goralski 87'), Masovic - Asano (Broschinski 65'), Stöger (Osterhage 65'), Antwi-Adjei - Hofmann (Ganvoula 82')
Unused subs: Esser, Janko, Heintz
Out: Grave (shoulder), Holtmann (knee), Losilla (suspended), Zoller (thigh)
Coach: Thomas Letsch

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About the clubs

VfL Bochum 1848

Vonovia Ruhrstadion

SV Werder Bremen

Weserstadion