2016-17 UEFA Champions League Quarter-final 2nd Leg: AS Monaco vs. Borussia Dortmund

This season has been very unimpressive to me. Sure some young talent is emerging, but the team as a whole never seem to be in sync and is very streaky and injury prone. We only seem good against lower level team and even then we are capable of losing those games (Darmstadt anyone?). I can't remember the last 'important' game we won. PK Against Bayern in Pokal just before getting crushed by Wolfsburg and DeBruyne? But then, it's more that they beat themselves by not being even able to hit the net. And I'm having more and more doubts about Tuchel ability to motivate the players... Anyway fairly depress with the current situation of the team.

 

Honestly I don't think the final results would have been different even without the bombing and with Marc in the lineup.

 

Good point. In his postmatch interview Tuchel explicitly mentioned how this impacted the team. They were focused on football leaving the hotel, however being stuck on the bus on the way to the match today brought everyone's minds back to the events of last week.

 

Of course it 'could' have been different. But my gut tells me it would not have been that different. Even with Bartra we give up too many goals. It's just a gut feeling + we never seem to be able to win the 'important' games even with a few goals ahead and a few minutes to play (yes I'm referring to the Liverpool debacle here). We always seem out of 'sync'.

 

Can someone tell the formation we played in the beginning? was it 4-2-3-1?
I have to say (based on what I've read and the matches I have seen) i don't trust in TT anymore. He is supposed to be a good tactician yet we keep arguing about his starting line-ups and formations. Moreover, ever since he took charge I have had the feeling the team lost a lot of steam and hunger. Dembele should have played since the first minute. It is true he goes missing sometimes but his quality is undeniable.

 

Tuchel mentioned two reasons why he chose not to start with Dembele. First, he wanted to use him later in the game when more space opens up and when one couldn't defend against him as hard, secondly, he felt that Dembele saw too many minutes already for his state/age. Further, he felt that the responsibility for our offense that was put on Dembele's shoulders was too much and effecting him as his performances the last weeks weren't as good.
To a degree, I find it hard to disagree with these points.

He also mentioned Piszczeck's 2 errors that were extreme of course, but he said he is a bit more forgiving because of last week's events effecting a guy with much empathy and who is a father as well.

I think much went against us in this tie even leaving aside the things happening off the field. Individual errors directly leading to at least half of their goals and 2 goals that another ref might not have given is hard to overcome. If we don't concede that early and Sahin scores instead of hitting the post, it's a different game.

 

Having read what fans in other boards are saying, primarily the Germans, I find it hard to blame TT. He lost Gundogan and never got a replacement he wanted. He wanted to keep Hummels but the latter chose not to stay. Same with Miki......I mean Miki ffs. He sucks 2 years straight, has already levelled out in Manchester and make him the BL player of the season and he wasn't kept. Look at where these players are now. Miki isn't even playing CL football. Gundogan

And then there is the squad he has to work with. How is Mbappe who is a year younger showing up on the big stage while Dembele is not? Why is Ginter still playing when he's proved over the last two years+ that he sucks. Why is LP still a starter is beyond me. And I am absolutely sick of Schmelzer. We can literally put out a defence that looks like LP-Ginter-Toprak-Schmelzer next season. Even Darmstadt would balk at that defence.

This is Watzkes fault. He is way past his due date. We have some great players and skilled staff in the club. But Watzke is clueless, has no ambition and will use any crutch to toss an excuse into the fray. After the attack, as CEO, the entire club looks to him for leadership and there wasn't any. Just BS words. Been here 10+ years and has ridden Jürgen Klopps coattails.

Aki Watzke needs to be chucked out.

 

I don't get the logic behind putting the team composition, formation and used players solely on Watzke while giving Tuchel a pass. It shouldn't be the CEO's job to put together the puzzle pieces of a team when we have other more suitable guys, including the coach, for that.

 

Why did TT even subbed out Sahin? he was our best player in the first half and if not for the useless Durm on the right wing who allowed plenty of Monaco attacks down his wing while at the same time, he offered no threat to push them back ward.

Monaco had nothing going for them in the middle and we had many goal scoring chances towards the end of the 1st half and looked far better after Durm was replaced than in the second half. I was hoping we could nick it in the 2nd half because we improved toward the end of the 1st half but TT went ahead to pull out our best player! What the hell!

 

Lot of BS!

I doubt you watched the match.