Sometimes it’s best to live in relative ignorance in order to keep your eyes on the prize. To focus, to shut out the outside noise, to not be distracted. Marco Rose doesn’t function like that.

“I take full responsibility for that first half,” the RB Leipzig coach said bluntly after Saturday’s uninspiring goalless draw at Union Berlin. Part of that demeanour is nurture is much as it is nature. Rose was born in Leipzig, yes, but more crucially had six years in the Red Bull organisation at Salzburg, from taking charge of the under-16s to the first team, before building his Bundesliga career at Borussias Mönchengladbach and Dortmund. He knows what the drill is. Ambition is total and there are clear consequences for falling short.

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This week has underlined exactly how short Leipzig are of where they want to be, and how desperate they are to get there. Finally sealing the permanent signing of Xavi Simons this week for a fee that could rise to €80m (£66m) underlined the aims but what might have escaped the notice in recent days, especially among the merry chaos of the last night of the Champions League group stage, is that Leipzig ended their miserable European campaign by going down by a single goal at Sturm Graz (“a disgrace” was how Bild described it), in one of the dead rubbers. It might not have meant anything to the final count but it meant something to Leipzig. Last year they were thoroughly examining Real Madrid in the first knockout round. This time, having lost all their games but one, they will be watching it at home on television.

So it is on fields like Köpenick rather than Chamartín that the immediate future will be shaped. That will be clear in the coming weeks; the DfB Pokal is still in play but the next three Bundesliga opponents are “unpleasant” ones in the words of captain Willi Orban – St Pauli, Augsburg and Heidenheim. The influential David Raum’s memorable recent line that he hoped to inspire his teammates to play “scumbag football” was aimed at disrupting the likes of Leverkusen and Bayern rather than going toe-to-toe with the earthier teams in the division.

Because results must come, with a return to the Champions League far from secure, but so must style and intent. Simons staying for a club record fee underlines the ambition, and how the parameters of the project have subtly but most definitely shifted, a move first clear with the signing of Loïs Openda in summer 2023. These are not signings made in the name of development, or with the aim of standing still. The extra time on the training field afforded to Leipzig in the coming weeks by that shambolic Champions League group stage – more time to plan than Bayern, Leverkusen of Dortmund will be able to count on, for example – means ironing out the creases in their game is an obligation rather than a preference.

In Berlin a front two of Benjamin Sesko and Openda were ably supported by Simons and Christoph Baumgartner but created little. Simons hit the outside of the post after a limpid first-half movement but there was little of mention in terms of clear-cut opportunities. Union had three times as many efforts on goal. It could have been worse even, with Peter Gulacsi fumbling a set-piece delivery in stoppage time in front of Union substitutes Theoson-Jordan Siebatcheu and Lucas Tousart, but just about getting away with it.

Rose is Leipzig’s longest serving top-flight coach having been appointed in September 2022, regathering himself after his chastening experience at Dortmund. So he is prepared, you suspect, for it to happen again at some point. Making the top four again is the bare minimum but the way in which Leipzig achieve it will dictate whether the coach continues his mission or not – as he well knows.

Bayer Leverkusen 3-1 Hoffenheim, Bayern Munich 4-3 Holstein Kiel, Bochum 0-1 Freiburg, Eintracht Frankfurt 1-1 Wolfsburg, Heidenheim 1-2 Borussia Dortmund, St Pauli 1-1 Augsburg, Stuttgart 1-2 Borussia Mönchengladbach, Union Berlin 0-0 RB Leipzig, Werder Bremen 1-0 Mainz

Talking points

• It was all about Harry Kane in his 50th Bundesliga appearance for Bayern, scoring twice against Holstein Kiel to give the leaders a win and take his league goal tally to an astonishing 55. Or it should have been all about Kane; his landmark was almost overshadowed by an erratic closing chapter to the game in which Vincent Kompany’s time fluctuated from leading 4-0 to being pegged back at 4-3 in stoppage time. The former Schalke man Steven Skrzybski’s brace came too late to put Bayern in genuine danger of seeing their six-point lead over Bayer Leverkusen diminished but irritated Kompany and made clear that their poise could be affected by the upcoming involvement in the Champions League playoff with Celtic, the two legs either side of the crucial visit to the reigning champions in the league.

• One striker who we less expected to make headlines in Germany this weekend was Victor Boniface. Both he and Leverkusen spent the first part of the week expecting a transfer to Al Nassr to go through, which suited everyone; a huge salary bump for the Nigerian centre-forward and a €70m bounty for the club. The problem was that it became clear he was only ever back-up to Jhon Durán, with sporting director Simon Rolfes looking ashen in his post-match interviews after Wednesday’s Champions League win over Sparta Prague as he admitted the sale had fallen through. No matter; Boniface started and scored the opener in Sunday’s win over Hoffenheim and his work-rate was exemplary. “I want to give the team goals, assists and energy,” the player said afterwards.

• The game also saw the first refereeing decision announcement as part of a trial, with Dr Robin Braun informing the crowd at BayArena that he was overturning a Leverkusen penalty given for a foul on Nathan Tella as the forward was found to have been offside. Cue boos and anti-DFB chants, unsurprising in a fan-led football culture with has always had an uneasy-at-best relationship with VAR due to its effects on the in-stadium experience.

• Dortmund have appointed Niko Kovac as their new coach but there was still time for a last game under caretaker Mike Tullberg, who led them to only a second away win of the season, at Heidenheim. After taking a 2-0 lead BVB conceded to Mathias Honsak midway through the second half to ensure a tense coda to the game, which might have explained Tullberg’s wild celebrations at the end. “The club means a lot to me,” the youth coach told Sky. “And we’ve also seen that [explosion of joy] with the under-19s.” BVB remain 11th, but only four points shy of Leipzig in fourth.

• Werder Bremen, surprisingly, are one of the big movers ahead of transfer deadline with André Silva arriving on loan from Leipzig – the Saxony club will continue to swallow a large part of the Portuguese striker’s whopping €7m annual salary as they attempt to regenerate his market value – as they perhaps dare to gaze towards Europe. Ole Werner’s Bremen got a win over a potential rival for qualification in Mainz on Friday night, closing out despite an extraordinary sequence in added time in which referee Martin Petersen sent off both Niklas Stark and Marco Friedl for time-wasting and dissent in the space of 20 seconds, leaving Werder with nine men. “I don’t want to give him a platform,” winning goalscorer Leonardo Bittencourt said of Petersen, “but what happened today was absolutely disgusting.”