Hitz LP Akanji Hummels Schulz Weigl Witsel Sancho Reus Hazard Alcacer Nice depth on the bench. A good start would be important to set the tone.
A good start (except the first minute) by us but it got slower towards the end. Good chances for Reus, Weigl and Witsel to score the lead. Sancho needs to do more to make our right side more dangerous but he did well whenever he relied on his instincts and actually getting balls in. Schulz and Hazard are a good duo with more scenes than LP+Sancho but what stands out is that they struggled so far to get usable balls into the penalty box after they did well to get into promising positions on the left wing. And it's not like a 50:50 failure situation, it feels more like a 90:10 failure to success rate. The good thing is, we created dangerous situations against a defensive minded opponent when we played fast and we have some players on the bench for that style to go for the win.
4:1 Alcacer. Suddenly everything works out. Sancho really woke up after his goal and had his part in the following two goals.
Brandt 5:1. Second time Witsel gets such a ball over the defense. I don't know whether we are that good in exploiting spaces or whether Augsburg are just not able to defend at all.
The final result is deserved but the score still sounds better than how the match developed over the full 90 minutes. There was a certain element of luck involved for some of the goals. I like the more composed Hazard as the partner to Sancho but there needs to be more endproduct. Other than that, not much to complain about obviously. I liked Alcacer's workrate. Hummels' passing was excellent. I think his plus Witsel's and Weigl's ability to execute precise long balls will help to make the game fast and keep defenses busy.
This was a really good team performance. Apart from Götze everybody played well. Of course the first min gitters is to be expected. Then again I don't understand how a squad could have Reus, Hummels, Witsel and LP yet still manage to concede in the first min.
Three points but no clean sheet, meaning the job was only half done. Now the focus must be on the next match.
After that Augsburg goal we absolutely dominated. Sure it hurts since Freiburg managed to keep a clean sheet but last year in the same encounter we needed a Paco freekick in the last minute to win. So it's quite an improvement.