Winter in crisis mode
At Borussia Dortmund, peace and quiet at the start of the long winter break has been severely disturbed. The playful oath of revelation at 2: 4 (2: 3) in Mönchengladbach and the associated temporary farewell from the top ranks of the Bundesliga hit everyone involved hard on the mind.
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“That’s far from our goal. It’s clear that this will give us a few turbulent weeks,” commented sporting director Sebastian Kehl. National player Julian Brandt (26) sounded no less depressed: “It’s extremely heavy luggage. It hurts a lot when you lose before the winter break. For me, that’s the fault of the category itself, complete inability.”
Two away defeats in Wolfsburg (0:2) and in Mönchengladbach within four days robbed BVB of a conciliatory end to the first period of the season. Until the Bundesliga restart of the Revierklub on January 22nd, every look at the table will cause discomfort. Coach Edin Terzic also made no secret of his frustration: “You don’t despair, but you’re very disappointed. We don’t start from zero, but from minus.”
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Little has remained of the spirit of optimism last summer with Terzic’s return to the bench after 15 days of play with more shadows than light. After six defeats, BVB is six points worse than under the direction of Terzic’s predecessor Marco Rose at the same time last season. Sports director Kehl sees a great need for action: “We will analyze it ruthlessly internally and have to attack again. There are some issues we need to work on.”
The long list of shortcomings fuels doubts as to whether the team has the quality required for one of the top four places this season. BVB again revealed serious defensive problems in Gladbach and were in front of 54,042 spectators with goals conceded by Jonas Hofmann (4th minute), Ramy Bensebaini (26th), Marcus Thuram (30th) and Manu Koné (46th). still well served in a sold-out Borussia Park.
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The defensive should be stabilized with the commitments of the two world championship drivers Niklas Süle (27) and Nico Schlotterbeck (22). “I’m missing the point, it can’t be explained. If we defend like that, you can’t be successful,” Kehl complained. “We allow way too much. We’re making life difficult for ourselves with that.” Brandt seemed similarly helpless: “You can’t actually invite an opponent more than we can today.”
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But the balance in attack is unworthy of a title aspirant. The lightning fast, but still harmless Donyell Malen (23) does not ignite even in his second year in Dortmund. In addition, the newcomers Karim Adeyemi (20) and Anthony Modeste (34) have remained well below the expected level for weeks. The fact that BVB is still in the running both in the cup and in the Champions League could only reduce the frustration about the growing gap between aspirations and reality to a limited extent.
The comeback of injured professionals like Marco Reus (33), Mahmoud Dahoud (26), Thomas Meunier (31) and Jamie Bynoe-Gittens (18) expected for January could help to remedy the deficits. “We will hopefully create new options with the odd player coming back. And then we have to attack again,” demanded Kehl. Terzic explained that you now have to “draw the right conclusions” from the analysis. Brandt also made it clear: “Nevertheless, we have to find ourselves again and hope for one or two reinforcements in January so that we can attack.”
However, there could be no talk of a positive mood among the German national players for the World Cup in Qatar. Nevertheless, goalscorer Brandt (19th) did not want to let the anticipation of the tournament take away. “By the time we arrive on Sunday evening, I’ll probably still be extremely pissed off,” admitted the 26-year-old, “but I can’t blame the DFB team for it. Accordingly, you have to find the switch – sometimes that’s not so easy.”
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