Mark O’Haire (@MarkOHaire) examines Dortmund’s fall from grace as they slipped to yet another Bundesliga defeat this weekend…
Dismal Dortmund In Crisis
Cast your mind back nearly 18 months to May 2013. Borussia Dortmund were denied a third successive Bundesliga title by old rivals Bayern Munich before the same opponents snatched a dramatic late winner in the Champions League final at Wembley.
Fast forward to October 2014 and BVB appear to be in crisis. Head coach Jürgen Klopp described his side’s football as “pointless” on Saturday evening as they fell to a fifth defeat in eight league games – a result that leaves the eight-times champions languishing in 14th, a whopping 13 points behind table-topping Bayern and rated 50/1 (Bet365) shots to claim the title!
It’s the worst start to a season by the Black and Yellows under Klopp, the worst run of form endured by Dortmund under Kopp’s reign and also one of the worst defensive starts to a season in the club’s long illustrious history.
The 2-1 defeat at Koln left BVB’s director of sport Michael Zorc to claim the club are in their “worst situation in years” and Klopp didn’t mince his words when speaking to the press either. The main concern is the amount of individual errors leading to opposition goals. And we may have found the reason why…
Since the aforementioned 2013 Champions League final, the Black and Yellows usual back four of Schmelzer, Hummels, Subotic and Piszczek haven't played together in 63 competitive games. There have been seven different back-four combinations in BVB's 11 competitive games in 2014/15 and there’s no doubt those defensive issues have dogged them in the opening two months of the season. Not ideal as they prepare to head to Turkey to take on Galatasaray in the Champions League this midweek.
İlkay Gündoğan, Marco Reus and Henrikh Mkhitaryan all returned from injury at the weekend but with more questions than answers surrounding the state of the Dortmund back four, it's hard to justify seeing the German giants chalked up as 17/20 (BetVictor) favourites for the trip to Istanbul. A play on Coral’s 21/20 for Galatasaray in the Double Chance market for Wednesday’s showdown looks more than fair.
Best Bets
Galatasaray v Dortmund – Galatasaray double chance (21/20 Coral)
