Match Ratings: Borussia Dortmund Steamrolled by Bayer Leverkusen

I bet you all are happy about the Niklas Süle news, right? Well too bad, because it’s now time to come back to reality by talking about the utter dumpster fire that appeared before our eyes on Sunday.

Borussia Dortmund were bad. Very bad. I don’t feel like going through all highlights because it will just unnecessarily elevate my blood pressure and I’d like to wipe this game from my memory, so I’ll just reiterate one more time that Dortmund were very, very bad.

Here are some highlights, in case you’re a Bayer Leverkusen and/or a masochistic BVB fan:

Here are our match ratings:

Starting XI

Gregor Kobel

Sean: 4

Look, none of the goals were soft and I can’t blame him individually for any of them, but if you concede 5 goals you get a bad rating.

Raphael Guerreiro

Sean: 2

Guerreiro chose to defend in absentia on Sunday. He should know that without a true defensive midfielder in the squad, he needs to be careful committing forward. Instead, he chose to throw himself into the attack, a decision that Leverkusen exploited again and again.

Dan-Axel Zagadou

Sean: 1

Something tells me that Big Zag can kiss that contract extension goodbye. I know this probably isn’t the case, but it feels like BVB announced Süle as a direct result of Zagadou’s mistakes.

Manuel Akanji

Sean: 4

His own goal was just unfortunate, and he had a few big tackles, but it was still a night to forget for Akanji. That being said, PLEASE EXTEND MANU!

Thomas Meunier

Sean: 5

Meunier got his noggin’ on the cross that eventually resulted in Jeremie Frimpong’s goal, and of the entire squad, he’s the only one who played even remotely well during the first half. It’s fitting, then, that he was subbed off with an injury at halftime.

Mahmoud Dahoud

Sean: 3

Dahoud and Bellingham got steamrolled in midfield. Leverkusen were better organized and both CMs chose to ignore their responsibilities to stay back and shield the back line. A CDM surely needs to be at the top of BVB’s summer transfer wishlist.

Jude Bellingham

Sean: 3

While he often looked promising-ish going forward, his ventures towards the opposition goal often left BVB dangerously open on the counterattack. He looked clearly frustrated towards the end, and Bellingham is very much a player who makes careless decisions when he gets frustrated.

Julian Brandt

Sean: 4

He was hardly BVB’s worst player. That doesn’t say much.

Marco Reus

Sean: 2

Completely invisible, both as an individual and as a leader.

Thorgan Hazard

Sean: 3

About as invisible as Reus, but at least he’s not the captain.

Donyell Malen

Sean: 4

He had a few half-decent moments sprinkled around the game. In other words, he was a solid candidate for MOTM.

Substitutes

Marius Wolf

Sean: 4

Wolf came on for Meunier and did about as good a job as I expected at fixing the problem. Hence the 4.

Youssoufa Moukoko

Sean: 7

Did more in his brief hiatus on the pitch than any starter, that’s for sure.

Gio Reyna

Sean: 5

They basically threw Gio on with the game all but over and said “Hey Gio, fix all this.” Shocking, he couldn’t single-handedly turn the tide of the game in his first match since the fall.

Steffen Tigges

Sean: 7

See my comment on Moukoko.

Overall

Sean: 1

Yeah so that was probably BVB’s most comprehensive defeat to a team that wasn’t Bayern Munich in years. I personally think it was worse than the Stuttgart loss that lost Favre his job. Fortunately, BVB announced the Süle signing yesterday and I pretty much forgot all about it. The game brought to the forefront many fundamental flaws in the squad, and I pretty much completely agree with Brett’s article: it’s time to blow it all up. Aside from a few key pieces like Akanji, Bellingham, Kobel, and now Süle, it’s time for BVB to cut all the deadweight in the squad.