The Daily Bee (February 10th, 2020): Another BVB-collapse - Is Favre in over his head?

• Matchday 21

Borussia Dortmund aren’t out of the title race but it certainly feels that way after an embarrassing collapse against Bayer Leverkusen. BVB are still in third place - in part because Borussia Mönchengladbach’s match against Köln got cancelled - and relatively close to both RB Leipzig and Bayern Munich but the black and yellows can forget the title if the defense isn’t fixed quickly.

Bayern Munich and RB Leipzig drew 0:0 in the

Schalke 04 could have gotten closer to the Champions League spots but could only manage a draw against last placed SC Paderborn and remain in 6th place.

Meanwhile, Werder Bremen’s crisis has gotten worse after their 0:2 loss at home to Union Berlin. The team that threw BVB out of the DFB Cup just a few days ago is now four points away from a non-relegation spot. The same counts for Fortuna Düsseldorf after their 1:1 draw to VfL Wolfsburg.

• Reactions to the loss (BVB.de)

Emre Can scored a beautiful goal in his first BVB-match but Dortmund still lost the game and Can didn’t mince words after the loss:

“The team has a lot of potential but needs to learn one thing: when you’re in the lead, you have to be “dirtier” – to put it simply. Sometimes you need to commit fouls, defend better, all together. We play beautiful attacking football but we all need to be better defensively. We scored three goals again today but we let in four. You don’t win games like that. It was a setback of course, but there is still a long way to go this season. Plenty can still happen. I believe in the team; I see the potential, even though I’ve only been here for a week. I’ll give my best and put myself out there for the team. I haven’t played for a long time and that wasn’t my best game today either, but it’ll get better in the future.”

He is correct with basically everything he is saying. This team is arguably the best offense of the Bundesliga but is way too naive on defense and definitely needs to be “dirtier” if they want to compete for the title. Hopefully Can can help with this in the coming weeks.

• Brandt out for a few weeks

More bad news for BVB as Julian Brandt is the next starter after Marco Reus who will miss some time. As Dortmund confirmed the midfielder suffered an ankle sprain against Bayer Leverkusen and will miss at least Friday’s match against Eintracht Frankfurt and possibly even a few more.

• Is Favre in over his head? (Sky Sports)

BVB’s shambolic defending continues and it has repeatedly cost them games. Scoring three goals against Bayer Leverkusen should be enough to get three points but once again individual mistakes doomed the black and yellows.

The players have to be blamed for the mistakes but at some point the attention will rightfully shift to Lucien Favre who after one and a half seasons in charge has not been able to correct this problem and at this point seems a bit clueless about what to do. Here is a statement from the coach after the match:

“I try my best to correct the right things. But since I’ve been a coach, I’ve rarely had a team that had such difficulties.”

This doesn’t exactly instill confidence that Favre knows what to do but he will need to or he probably won’t be in charge beyond this summer.