RB Leipzig are showing tentative signs of stabilisation after a bruising stretch that threatened to derail their season entirely. A 2-1 DFB-Pokal win at RW Essen on October 27 followed a 4-0 Bundesliga victory over Elversberg, giving the club back-to-back wins for the first time in weeks and lifting them to fifth in the table with 12 points from seven games.

The recent upturn matters because the weeks before it were damaging. A 1-6 collapse against Bayern Munich exposed defensive fragility and poor decision-making, and a 1-4 defeat at Real Madrid in the Champions League compounded the sense of a club struggling for consistency and identity under Martin Demichelis. The Argentine coach faced pointed public criticism, including from Lothar Matthäus, who questioned both his tactical choices and his ability to communicate clearly with players inside the dressing room. Those doubts have not fully disappeared, and Demichelis remains under close scrutiny from the club's hierarchy.

Off the pitch, Leipzig have been linked with a potential winter move for 19-year-old Juventus loanee Dario Licina, a former Bayern Munich academy product currently on loan at Cremonese, according to transfer expert Gianluca Di Marzio. It is a modest but telling signal that the club is already thinking about reinforcing.

Next up is a Bundesliga trip to Schalke on October 31. Three points there would do much to settle nerves and buy Demichelis more breathing room.