The Daily Bee (October 7th, 2019): Matchday 7 - Gladbach at the top, BVB in a crisis

• Matchday 7

Well the Bundesliga certainly isn’t boring!

Borussia Mönchengladbach are the new leaders after matchday 7, the Foals smashed FC Augsburg 5:1 at home to take the lead in the table. However it feels like this is more because of the inconsistency of the supposed top teams - Bayern, BVB and Leipzig - rather than Gladbach playing at a high level.

VfL Wolfsburg moved into second place, winning against Union Berlin 1:0 at home. Meanwhile, Bayern Munich shockingly lost to TSG Hoffenheim 1:2 at home and dropped to third place just days after their 7:2 against Tottenham Hotspur.

Neither RB Leipzig, nor Bayer Leverkusen were able to take advantage of the peculiar results in the Bundesliga, drawing 1:1 against each other. You could say the same about Schalke who squandered a chance to go top and only drew 1:1 against 1.FC Köln at home.

SC Freiburg are the surprise team in fourth place. Christian Streich’s team was able to hold Dortmund to a 2:2 at home.

Which leads us to the big topic of this week and probably the weeks to come, Borussia Dortmund are in a crisis. The third 2:2 draw in a row and once again a late goal for the opponent leads to a 9th place after 7 matchdays. Catastrophic for a team that wants to win the title. The situation is even worse considering that both Bayern and Leipzig are struggling as well.

• Brandt sums up Favre’s line-up choices

Julian Brandt started on the bench but got subbed on early after Lukasz Piszczek went down. After the game Brandt talked about his difficult situation:

“It’s difficult. If you’ve been sitting on the bench a lot, short-term assignments, then you play 90 minutes, then maybe you’re back on the bench. [...] The coach makes his lineup, he’ll have his reasons why he does it. I think he’s a smart coach. I was not able to talk to him about it.”

That about sums up Lucien Favre’s peculiar decision making. Players that do well, like Mo Dahoud against Werder Bremen, suddenly find themselves on the bench again. Others, like Manuel Akanji who has been subpar for a few weeks, seem to have a guaranteed spot in the starting eleven.

Daily Buzz: BVB won’t make a coaching change. Michael Zorc has already confirmed towards Bild that Lucein Favre will be in charge until after the international break but should they make a change? And who could or should replace Favre?