Bundesliga: Borussia Monchengladbach impress in 4-1 victory

Borussia Monchengladbach boosted their goal difference to move above Bayer Leverkusen to third in the Bundesliga on Wednesday night thanks to a 4-1 win over bottom-placed Werder Bremen.

Max Kruse, Oscar Wendt, Christoph Kramer and Branimir Hrgota all found the back of the net in a comprehensive win for Lucien Favre's side with Zlatko Junuzovic scoring Bremen's consolation.

To make matters worse for the visitors, they ended the game with 10 men after Luca Caldirola was given his marching orders.

Favre rotated his side for this penultimate appointment of 2014 with Hrgota and Wendt among a trio of new faces.

Both took their chances well, proving a point to Favre, who now knows if he did not before that he has strength in depth in his squad.

Ibrahim Traore was the third new face in the side and he had the first shot of the game after nine minutes, but Raphael Wolf pushed the ball out to safety.

Gladbach played the ball around confidently, preventing Bremen from posing the threat in attack and from set-pieces Favre had warned about before the game, indicating the fact that the northern Germany side had scored three more goals than his own team coming into the game.

That became two goals more after half an hour when Philipp Bargfrede fouled Traore inside the penalty area and Kruse converted from the spot, sending Wolf the wrong way.

Wendt added a second before the break with his angled shot taking a deflection off Caldirola on its way in.

Junuzovic gave Bremen some hope with one of his trademark direct free-kicks which, even if Gladbach were well aware of the threat he posed, still found its way over the wall and into the top corner.

Bremen then enjoyed their best spell of the game, coming close to levelling before Germany international Kramer headed Gladbach's third from Kruse's cross.

Shortly after, Caldirola picked up his second yellow card in the space of three minutes to end his side's hopes of a recovery.

Hrgota compounded their misery with two minutes to play, tucking the ball in from Thorgan Hazard's pass to seal a 4-1 win for the Foals.