James Rodriguez Is An Imaginative Footballer – Jupp Heynckes

Jupp Heynckes hailed the “imaginative” James Rodriguez’s goalscoring return from injury as the reigning champions moved top of the Bundesliga for the first time this season with a comfortable 2-0 win over 10-man RB Leipzig.

“On Tuesday, he was suffering severe back pain and couldn’t travel to Leipzig,” Heynckes said of James at the postmatch news conference.

“James is more of an attacking midfielder and today he played very well. He had an excellent game, tracking back well for the benefit of the team — that is exactly what I demand of him.

“He had a lot of touches of the ball and he’s an imaginative footballer.

“But I’m a trainer who demands more and we will keep working with him. But that doesn’t just apply to him, it applies to the whole team, there’s always something to improve.”

Heynckes added: “The win was the most important thing. We have another game coming up on Tuesday [Celtic] in the Champions League and another top-of-the-table clash in Dortmund next Saturday.

“You could see that both sides were involved in action for 120 minutes in midweek, but we were very motivated and focussed today right from the start. When the opponent has a red card after only 14 minutes then it is undoubtedly a real advantage at the top level.

“Nevertheless, with the 1-0 and 2-0 lead, we secured the win cleverly and the clean sheet is the priority and not allowing any chances. We could have scored more with headers from Thiago and Lewandowski but that was not so important to me.

“The team is fatigued at the moment, you could see that. We had a gigantic battle over 120 minutes with Leipzig on Wednesday and both teams had two days to recover. Despite the players’ fitness levels these days, this is very tight indeed.

“We have had a lot of games recently and still have games coming up, so I must say we played well we did exactly the right thing.”