Jurgen Klopp and Dortmund

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ItsEssexRob said:
Werent you the same guy who predicted United would comfortably finish top four last season?( amongst many admittedly) and got very annoyed at anyone who suggested otherwise. Below Bayern that league is very competitive now and its in no way assured they will especially given their current form.
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You're talking about two very different things.

First of all, yes, Dortmund could finish outside the top 4. But that is hardly something a sane person who knows anything about the team would expect. Secondly, unlike us, Dortmund hasn't changed their coach nor is their squad struggling with old players in key positions. Thirdly, not making the top 4 in Bundesliga with a team like Dortmund, even with this bad start, would take a feckup of massive proportions.

If we were in the end of december and Dortmund still lost, even with their bet XI, then you'd have a point.
 
Revan said:
I am going with a crazy prediction. They will comfortably finish on top 4 of Bundesliga and will win Uefa Champions League.
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I actually thought the same yesterday.
 
KM said:
I actually thought the same yesterday.
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It is probably more wishful thinking from my part, but I also think that a fully fit Dortmund can beat any club on Europe. Also, I fully expect them to improve and to finish on top 4 on Germany.
 
ItsEssexRob said:
I never said he would be sacked just severe pressure. Comes with any top job no?
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Moyes wasn't under severe pressure for a long time. I would guess Klopp will be if he is still performing like this in February but one would expect he will sort things out so after the next two games I'm not so sure.

Just so you know I am not an expert on Dortmund.
 
They'll get better as the season progresses, they've been missing some key players due to injury and some others aren't performing at their best right now. Hummels needs more time to find some form while Papastathopoulos still looks rusty from the WC. Their biggest problems come from the wings because whoever has played at R/LFB (Piszczeck, Schmelzer, Durm, Grosskreutz) seems to be a liability defensively. Thankfully Klopp now has more choices in the midfield. When all their first team players get enough games together they'll become more cohesive and they'll start playing better.

As for finishing in the top four, i agree that they'll probably make it mainly because their rivals lack the consistency to win many games in a row and make the most out of Dortmund's poor form at the moment. But we have to keep in mind that Schalke seem to always have the way to get a CL spot in the end, Leverkuzen will also get better and M'Gladbach are a much better team than most people think on this forum.

The main issue here is that Dortmund were expected to be close to Bayern Munich in the league table for as long as possible. If Bayern Munich were considered to be two or three steps ahead of everyone else ,before the start of the season, Dortmund were also considered to be a step ahead from the rest of the competition in the Bundesliga. Even Klopp admitted, after the game against Koln, that he made mistakes in the summer.

The truth is that they miss Lewandowski, not his goals but what he can do on the pitch. When their opponents give them space to exploit at the back of the defense, like Arsenal, they are ok. The problems start when Dortmund have to open up defenses that are playing deep. Immobile's inability to receive the ball with his back on the goal, hold onto it and bring Reus, Kagawa and Mkhitaryan in the game is causing them problems. Despite all the pressing and the good off the ball movement Immobile doesn't link very well with the rest of the attacking players. Of course things can improve in the next couple of months.

I also believe that Klopp should have made a plan B for the Bundesliga matches by now. When Dortmund are in good form their high pressing and direct football can destroy almost any opponent. But this kind of football requires very high energy levels, a lot of aggressiveness and endless running without the ball for 90 minutes. It also leads to many injuries and makes their (high) defensive line vulnerable when some players aren't performing well.
 
I'd be surprised if Klopp is sacked, I believe they will turn it around anyway. But if he was sacked, make no mistake ALOT of clubs would be in line for him.
 
Utd7 said:
I'd be surprised if Klopp is sacked, I believe they will turn it around anyway. But if he was sacked, make no mistake ALOT of clubs would be in line for him.
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I know you said you'd be surprised if klopp was sacked, but I honestly think that even if they were in the relegation zone the club would stand behind klopp, he's an absolute legend there and fans and players and management all love him. If he were sacked, I'd have him here in a heartbeat...the man is a football wizard.
 
Mad Winger said:
"Truly great teams usually only last 4 years at most"
- Sir Alex Ferguson

Seriously though, we're 8 games in. And they've played with a severely weakened team due to injuries.
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Pretty much full strength team out today and they lose 0-1 at home to Hannover... thats 4 losses in a row, 5 in losses in 6. Still confident about ridiculing what I said?
 
Sean_RedDevil said:
Of course it's possible but i can't see it.

They're making so many mistakes in the defence....a Lewandowski could maybe score a hat-trick in a match against Cologne (or Hamburg two weeks ago) and they could still win a match.
But like said they don't have a striker like him and their attacking players can't score enough goals to get something from this matches.

We're average/poor in the defence too....but Di Maria, Rooney, Falcao, RVP, Mata & Januzaj can give us enough goals to win matches against clubs like QPR, West Ham or Everton.

Bayern Munich vs Dortmund in two weeks will be very important for Dortmund....first of all they must beat Hannover next weekend
If they beat Hannover and then can beat Bayern Munich or at least a draw with a very good game.....then they go up in the table
But no win against Hannover then they're really fecked and will probably lose 3-0/4-0 in the Allianz Arena
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No they will lose 7-0
 
Another loss. Bloody hell, they really seem to be in free fall. What's happened to them?
 
To be fair they always have more shots but simply don't convert them in the league. I don't even know what it is but they didn't look different to how they looked in the CL in the games I've seen. They did produce a lot of individual mistakes in defense so far this season and just didn't convert any of their own chances whereas most their opponents magically convert their first chance and then seal it on the counter. I definitely don't think Klopp is the problem here. And yeah I couldn't see them firing him. He's brought them from bottom half of the table to CL finalist and CL pot 1. He's definitely gonna stay.

As someone said in another topic though, it could really hurt their long term development if they don't finally pick up the pace again. They need those consistent top 4 finishes!!
 
Sean_RedDevil said:
Only if Bayern Munich have few sent-offs

A win against Hannover today and then in the DFB-Pokal against St.Pauli then maybe a draw wasn't so unrealistic

But now i think they're getting a heavy defeat in Munich
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Dortmund will sit deep and try to counter against the high line and possession football of Munich. We've seen many times that Dortmunds system works perfectly against them.
Against the lower opposition Dortmund is unable to control the game. In the CL they faced Anderlecht/Arsenal/Gala who all tried to create chances. Dortmund was able to punish them each time.
 
ItsEssexRob said:
Pretty much full strength team out today and they lose 0-1 at home to Hannover... thats 4 losses in a row, 5 in losses in 6. Still confident about ridiculing what I said?
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Yes, because the problem with your last statement remains the same. If you had written; "Dortmund could actually finish outside the top 4", I wouldn't even have raised on eyebrow. But the tone of your post showed that you actually expected Dortmund to finish outside the top 4, which is ridiculous to expect after 8 games. It's like expecting Bayern to lose 5-0 on Allianz Arena vs the weakest team in the league. It could happen, but it's not something someone who knows anything about the Bundesliga would expect.
 
seems like it takes a team, say, 4 to 8 matches to get a grip of how to counter the dortmund style. their bundesliga opponents have adapted to it. obviously. international teams still struggle.

i'm gonna go puke now.
 
The past two games have shown a lot of improvement. Today was actually a pretty good game in everything but finishing.
 
Just found out they lost again and are sat in 15th. What have their performances been like? How many CL spots does the BL have, 4 or 3? Either way, they're 9 points off 4th.
 
saivet said:
Just found out they lost again and are sat in 15th. What have their performances been like? How many CL spots does the BL have, 4 or 3? Either way, they're 9 points off 4th.
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there's 3 direct CL spots and the 4th goes into qualification round.

on dortmund's performances: well. they've lost all these matches against minor opposition, they haven't even faced bayern, gladbach, hoffenheim, but already lost to schalke and leverkusen. their injured big-name players came back two matches ago, both of which they also lost. for the moment, it seems like most, if not all bundesliga teams seem to have found them out, in a way. lying deep, let dortmund have the ball, prey on their massive passing flaws and hit them hard on the counter, as dortmund's defensive line has been tending to be overly error-prone, up to a surreal level of cringeworthy incompetence that is/was. plus their defensive line stood way too high on the pitch, but that's been corrected as of today, it seems.
but that's not what happened today. they should have won this match. but they failed to score, spectacularly, whilst conceding a marvellous free-kick goal. and that was that.
their defending wasn't as shambolic as before, but their utter lack of clinical finishing had them lose the 4th match in a row - whilst one could say, optimistically, that today did actually show several improvements! that's how weird things are right now. now it's crunch time, already. mats hummels has to lead the team, wake them up, he's their captain, there's nobody else in this squad who could speak up, man up, make them get their act together, show some decency and win the upcoming 25 league matches and the goddamn CL, ffs.

also, weidenfeller has been sloppy and nowhere near his best.
their rivaling new strikers immobile and ramos kept showing signs of annoyingly ignorant decision-making in crucial situations, just too eager to score. which kind of sucks big time. whilst their, erm, secret 1st-option striker aubameyang is the only positive news these days, showing great development when played to his virtues as a striker rather than a winger.
kagawa showed hints of what he is/was capable of, as did gündogan, after 14 months of injury. reus seems indifferent at times, but he's just too gifted to actually fail. also he's most probably gone after this (already weird) season. as for mkhitaryan, he's just boggling my mind atm, i couldn't even say if he's good or bad really! his work-rate is immense, he's fighting hard, but, well, he hasn't scored all season long, his passing is often very sloppy, he hasn't really gelled with kagawa, reus, gündogan, ramos and/or immobile during the season, but how could he.
piszczek seems to slowly return to his actual level of capability. erik durm is caught in a neverending loop of sh*t atm, he's in his sophomore season and it's been a disaster so far, whilst schmelzer has been injured for most of the time. sokratis and subotic are okay, but not near their best. ginter has to gel slowly, needs time to adapt, he cost them points when played as a CB. and mats hummels showed flaws and unforced errors to an extent that it actually stopped being hilarious at some point. but hey, he was kinda good today!

TL;DR everything is really odd and weird with a slight note of fubar. because WHY on earth is this happening. feck all. BRUSSIA!!! BRUSSIA!!! BRUSSIA!!!
 
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Lyricist said:
To be fair they always have more shots but simply don't convert them in the league. I don't even know what it is but they didn't look different to how they looked in the CL in the games I've seen. They did produce a lot of individual mistakes in defense so far this season and just didn't convert any of their own chances whereas most their opponents magically convert their first chance and then seal it on the counter. I definitely don't think Klopp is the problem here. And yeah I couldn't see them firing him. He's brought them from bottom half of the table to CL finalist and CL pot 1. He's definitely gonna stay.

As someone said in another topic though, it could really hurt their long term development if they don't finally pick up the pace again. They need those consistent top 4 finishes!!
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I had to check which thread I was in then. This really seems like it could apply to United too, although we don't have it quite as bad (which really tells you something about the state Dortmund are in). It's interesting though and shows that the midtable Bundesliga teams aren't just pushovers.
 
maze said:
mats hummels has to lead the team, wake them up, he's their captain, there's nobody else in this squad who could speak up, man up, make them get their act together, show some decency and win the upcoming 25 league matches and the goddamn CL, ffs.
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Mats - really? You mean "leading" like in blaming his teammates in after-the-match-interviews?
 
Blackwidow said:
Mats - really? You mean "leading" like in blaming his teammates in after-the-match-interviews?
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i just read into what you're referring to. well, that was absolutely unnecessary (subtly blaming weidenfeller for today's free-kick goal in an interview), especially after his own, error-laden displays over the past weeks. that's just..nope.
 
The next couple of weeks will show whether it was only the injuries that stopped them from performing. Btw, Schalke is only 4 points better and no one's talking about that. Should be a small consolation for those Biene Majas out there. See you next weekend :D
 
Blackwidow said:
Mats - really? You mean "leading" like in blaming his teammates in after-the-match-interviews?
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maze said:
i just read into what you're referring to. well, that was absolutely unnecessary (subtly blaming weidenfeller for today's free-kick goal in an interview), especially after his own, error-laden displays over the past weeks. that's just..nope.
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Confirms what i think about the fella. His class on the pitch is undisputed, his personality is something else.
 
It's tough to have a midweek CL game and then be fresh a few days later. Look at man city today...they bought Fernando so that they could rest Fernandinho after a tough CL game and still lost today. Klopp doesn't have a big or strong enough squad this year to launch an assault on every tropy. Perhaps they will go all out for the CL this year seem as Bayern have already wrapped up the league this year in November
 
Ringo 07 said:
It's tough to have a midweek CL game and then be fresh a few days later. Look at man city today...they bought Fernando so that they could rest Fernandinho after a tough CL game and still lost today. Klopp doesn't have a big or strong enough squad this year to launch an assault on every tropy. Perhaps they will go all out for the CL this year seem as Bayern have already wrapped up the league this year in November
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they absolutely have a big and strong enough squad, plus only a few relevant players are injured: schmelzer, sahin and kirch - though it has only been a week since a key player in the name of gündogan returned. it was certain that they needed a few weeks. but we don't have those weeks atm.
last season saw a similar injury-laden period, but the squad managed to scrape impressive results out of nowhere. this season they look much much better on paper, but they don't work as a unit.
 
Hopefully at least our fans can see now that buying a top class defender won't magically fix our defensive problems. Defence more than any other time are about organisation and is done as a group rather than individuals. Dortmund's state now and Atlético's heroic last year show that.
 
Can we have Hummels now please?
 
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