Borussia Monchengladbach 3-0 Bayer Leverkusen

Borussia Monchengladbach can start to plan for Champions League football next season after they beat local rivals Bayer Leverkusen 3-0 to strengthen their claim for a top-three finish.Max Kruse, Patrick Herrmann and Ibrahima Traore provided the goals for Lucien Favre's men, who are now just one win away from sealing their place in the group stage of next season's Champions League.Leverkusen will still be joining them in the competition next season but unless they can make up a four-point deficit on Wolfsburg, which could grow on Sunday, they will first have to get through a play-off in August.Gladbach started the better and had a good chance to take the lead in the 20th minute when Kruse was sent through by Raffael, but his shot was saved by Bernd Leno with the ball looping over the crossbar.Herrmann wasted Gladbach's next chance when he also only had Leno to beat, but he was denied twice by the Leverkusen custodian who was simply not going to let anything through.The first sign of life from Leverkusen came in the 33rd minute when Stefan Kiessling headed in from Hakan Calhanoglu's free-kick, but the linesman's flag was raised before Leverkusen even started to celebrate.Son Heung-min brought the number of big chances level with a shot which Yann Sommer did well to turn behind for a corner.Gladbach were quick out of the blocks in the second half as some alert thinking from Granit Xhaka sent Herrmann clear from a free-kick and he squared for the Germany international to score from close range.Raffael should have added a second from a similar position from another Herrmann cross, but he apologised to the entire Borussia Park Stadion after sending his shot wide.Julian Korb ensured Leverkusen did not get back into the game midway through the second half when he slid in at the far post to turn a cross behind as Stefan Reinartz prepared for a tap-in.It showed how fragile Gladbach's lead was, which is why a second goal was so important, and it arrived with 10 minutes remaining.A well-worked free-kick found its way to Christoph Kramer, whose low shot was only parried by Leno to Herrmann, who threaded his ball underneath the Leverkusen goalkeeper to settle his side's nerves.Traore then gave them even more to celebrate with a fine effort curled in from the edge of the penalty area in the closing stages.ends