All of the players who played on the weekend will be available. Mario Götze is available. Marc Bartra, Jeremy Toljan are day to day. Raphael and Schürrle are weeks away.
BVB: Bürki, Zagadou, Sahin, Yarmolenko, Aubameyang, Pulisic, Kagawa, Sokratis, Piszczek, Castro, Toprak. #hsvbvb pic.twitter.com/fH9SO680TK— Borussia Dortmund (@BVB) September 20, 2017
I hope Philipp, Gotze, Dahoud and Toljan are being rested for the two big games coming up, if so then I agree with the lineup even if it is a bit risky.
This is a fun game, lots of action, though BVB have not made the most of their chances. Yarmolenko playing really well. Pulisic not with his best touches. No egregious mistakes but several chances only taken with average quality. BVB could easily have scored three and given up two.
We really need a second goal as we allow too many dangerous situations. Yarmo played well, again. I guess we'll see Weigl, Dahoud and Philipp in the second half because the other substitutes are only there because of the injuries.
Good to be winning, but we need a second to be safe. Yarmolenko has been fantastic and Auba very good too. Burki is having a good game. The midfield has been terrible though. Castro, Kagawa and Sahin have been completely dominated, but luckily we can hit it long now with Yarmo and Auba as options. The defence has been awful too. Toprak has outperformed Sokratis since he has gotten into the team. Zagadou is showing his lack of experience and being caught out often with balls in behind. Piszczek better defensively but poor in possession.
Nice goal Pulisic. Was just thinking that he wants it too much with his runs and missing the right moments to pass but as long as the end result is a win, I take it.
I was just worrying about his previous hero-ball nutmeg run putting his team off, but then he did that. Happy belated birthday. Now Bruun Larsen needs his birthday gift.
more i watch yarmo, more i like him. dahoud did more in 13 mins than castro in entire match, but nothing new here i guess....
It was a funny match. Out of the starting 11 only Yarmolenko, Auba and Burki actually had very good games. Overall I would say Toprak was good too. So many of the other players were bad to awful, but it was a comfortable win. The really promising thing about that win is so many of the players starting should be in the second team. Dahoud looked good when he came on and helped give us control of the midfield. Pulisic got a good goal, but he was poor tonight. LP is just terrible in possession now. Zagadou is still learning and looked shattered, hopefully he has a rest this weekend. I liked that Toprak and Bosz were in his ear giving him encouragement. It was also nice to see players actually playing in their best positions and playing well. It's such a shame we had such a difficult group in the CL and had such a key game so early with so many injuries.
Yes, usually his runs are a great plus for the team when he creates space and opportunities for Dortmund and chaos for the opponent, but this time it looked like he had to prove something after a tough first half. It almost appeared as if it was more about showing his skills when better simpler options were available. As long as he can channel that ambition into goals, it's good, though.
I think this was a solid performance by the squad. HSV played really well to clog up spaces. It is hard to blame the squad for not being able to play there usual possession game and then pass the ball up the pitch. Here are my ratings: Bürki 7: We needed him and he came up big. Though HSV were awful with their shots. LP 4: I am finding it difficult to justify giving him better ratings. He offered very little in offence. HSV let him off the hook by barely testing him either. Sokratis 6: Decent performance Toprak 7: He was better than expected DAZ 7: He was excellent in the 2nd half. Always calm and collected despite being under pressure. Max 4: Didn't have much to do PEA 7: His running and build up play was quite good. Missed a chance he absolutely should have buried. Mo 8: Got an assist, made the team more dangerous as soon as he came on. He deserves to start on a regular basis. Sahin 4: Almost had an assist. He seems to get slower by the game. Didn't offer much at all. I think he left the defence far to exposed. Yarmolenko 8: Likely the most useful player in the evening. Castro 4: Likely the most useless player in the evening. Pulisic 7: His confidence is soaring and it shows. First half was poor but he made up for it. Kagawa 6: Glad he got a goal to open the scoring. But he has a long way to go to get back to how he was playing under TT. PB 8: I think he got his tactics right this time. Let Shinji get some freedom. Didn't allow the team to have unnecessary possession. The defence needs to improve though. However, I think that was down to Sahin being rather poor.
Sokratis is quite lucky he is the captain with Reus injured, Schmelzer injured and Sahin scheduled to be dropped. If Bartra comes back, then it is Sokratis, not Toprak whom deserves to make way. It was good to see Bosz is pragmatic and not dogmatic on his style of football. Not only was he happy, but the team were very capable of going long.
It's nice that our defense needs to improve but we've managed all of these clean sheets. It's doing our differential wonders