Nadiem Amiri dissatisfied with state of Mainz attack: “We don’t have the quality.” | OneFootball

Mainz midfield talisman Nadiem Amiri is understandably in much less sanguine mood this year than last season. Amiri’s Rheinhessen found themselves unable to score a goal against visiting RB Leipzig on Saturday afternoon. The 0-1 home defeat leaves Mainz with just one point through three Bundesliga matchdays. The Nullfünfter also dropped their opening home fixture of the season 0-1 to Köln and could only manage a 1-1 draw away at VfL Wolfsburg.

For Amiri, the loss of lead striker Jonathan Burkardt to regional rivals Eintracht Frankfurt still stings. Amiri has scored the lone league goal for Mainz through three matchdays this season, and that was from the penalty spot. Though Mainz still have plenty of promising attackers in their squad, the new additions and winners from training camp just aren’t quite clicking yet.

“We simply don’t have the quality across the board that Leipzig does,” Amiri told Sky Germany on Saturday. “We’re also missing one or two killers up front who can put the chances away. Last year we also had Jonny, who scored 18 goals. A team like ours simply needs that. We need to spread the goals around, but we’re not managing to do that at the moment. That’s probably why we’re so harmless in front of goal right now.

“One point from three games really hurts,” Amiri went on to say. “We’re not good enough at the moment. It’s clearly not good enough at the moment. We went into the game with some momentum after a great second half in Wolfsburg. But we couldn’t get it right on the pitch today. It was a deserved defeat.”

With Benedict Hollerbach and Jae-Sung Lee out injured, FSV head coach Bo Henriksen built a three-pronged attack spearheaded by Nelson Weiper. Arnaud Nordin and the newly acquired William Bøving lined up behind Weiper as buttressing support attackers. Nordin managed to make his presence felt, but Weiper and Bøving barely got into the game.

Weiper still maintains enormous potential and has done well for Mainz both in the Conference League playoff and over the international break with the Germany U21s. Weiper, Lee, Hollerbach, Bayern loanee Armindo Sieb and Amiri’s own scouting project Ben Bobzien still give Henriksen plenty of options.

GGFN | Peter Weis