Union Berlin's fall was really quicker than I expected. I mean a complete failure by them actually. Because they didn't just lose the lead. They started a long running bad streak in their league matches. I don't know what the reason was for it. Maybe there was some kind of motivation deficiency there. Especially the embarrasing results against Freiburg and Leverkusen must have dropped their morale even more. But they are still lucky that there has been a long break to take a deep breath.
I'm aware that they are normally an average team. But this good start to the season first must have some meaning for them. They can do better than this now. They have the strength to fight for top 4 and a Champions League ticket as a result. They are in the Europa League on one hand of course. But they might be likely to be eliminated by Ajax. If they do then they would completely focus on the Bundesliga.
Union Berlin having good time at the top of Bundesliga due to bad start of the season for Bayern Munich and having poor performance from the Borussia Dortmund but now before break they are back on their deserved position because they fail to keep their performance at the top level and have to fallen after having three loses and just one win from their last five matches now after break things are still not easy for them because schedule is tough and few teams like Borussia Dortmund and Wolfsburg are also improving their quality and performance which helps them for having better rank in league table and this could be also dropped for the Union Berlin as well.
If they want to stay at good level then surely they have to improve quality and performance as well because now in February they are going to face Ajax and this is not easy game for them and Bundesliga is also going to be more heated with challenge is going to be tough for all teams for having better spot.
Teams that start playing really well at the start of the season like Union Berlin did, actually, most of the time cannot continue to perform like that till the end of the season. And this was no exception. I think we all somewhat expected this. I know that a lot of people did think that they might actually give Bayern Munich good competition for the title. But deep down, I dont think anyone actually believed that.
Right now, they are in a really bad downward spiral. It is going to be very hard for them to get out of it. But I think if they can finish this season in the top four, it is going to be quite a big achievement for them, but as I said it is not going to be easy.