Team selection today was poor , too many players unnecessarily out of position . Substitutions were strange and timing even stranger ,if PB is not under pressure , he should be .
On paper our players are excellent except for Castro and Rode. A good coach can get good use out of even the average guys like Sahin, Schurrle, Schmelzer and Piszczek. My fear however is that top players who need a good coach to develop are the most vulnerable right now. Pulisic, Phillip, DAZ, Isak and Sancho are going to stall. My biggest concern is with the duo of Weigl and Dahoud. Weigl looks a shadow of the player he was under TT. And Dahoud has hardly played!!! The guy who was a missing cog last year is still missing despite wearing our colours. Preposterous. I look at Napoli, City and Inter. It's painfully obvious how those clubs are moving in the right direction whereas we are most definitely aren't.
I am not sure I agree that on paper the team is excellent. We have a lot of injuries, but in my opinion we still lack a world class centre back, a top class keeper and possibly a top class wide player. I am not convinced by Toljan either. The Napoli comparison is a fair one, but you can't compare Dortmund with City and even Inter. City have endless money to spend. If we could spend 100 million on two full backs then I am sure we would do better too. Over the last few years I would bet City have spend more than the entire Bundesliga top 4 have in the same amount of seasons.
The Napoli and Inter squads are cheaper and have inferior players on paper. But Spaletti plays to their strengths which Bosz is incapable of. And Sarri is spinning gold out of yarn with that Napoli squad. I want a coach like Sarri. Hell I just want him. Maybe we need to look towards current investment bankers instead of coaches.
I gave you Napoli, but not Inter. Their squad at the moment is probably not cheaper and they have spent a lot more than Dortmund in recent years, without the selling the likes of Higuain or Dembele for hundreds of millions. Sarri is doing a great job from what I hear. I am impressed with what I have seen, but let's see how he does in Europe. There is a good chance they will be playing alongside us in the Europa despite having an easier group.