Mario Götze given the day off. Part of his recovery process I suppose. Marc Bartra back in the lineup. Marco Reus has refuted claims that he's delaying his comeback. His progress is going according to plan. Julian Weigl and Mo Dahoud will be our midfielders along with Shinji Kagawa.
Unable to watch, but really surprised Sancho is already featuring on the bench. With that early goal from Yarmolenko maybe we can run the score up and he can get a few late minutes
And we can't seem to hold the ball at all anymore... First Castro pass goes directly to the ref...lol
So our possession play is going to all hell so Peter Bosz thinks it's a good idea to remedy it by bringing in Castro?!?!? WTF. Are they related???
Wow! Weird penalty given so late. And Auba can't convert... again! This win is sliding quickly to a draw... At least 3 clear miss from Auba and he missed them all.
Auba alone on the keeper from half field and does not even enter the box! The defender catch him and stop the attack. Not is game clearly.
1. Bosz is seriously playing with fire using that absurdly high line. At some point he needs to learn to adapt..... or it will cost us. 2. Auba was clearly off his game. One of his worst games in a BVB kit. 3. Sokratis was a beast today - he kept Augsburg from getting an equalizer. 4. Dahoud had very little impact on the match, and looked lost at times. Overall we looked ok in the 1st half, but atrocious in the 2nd half. It was ugly..... but it's the type of game we need to win to make a run at the plate.
first time i watch a good chunk of a game in a while.. i watched from the ~35th minute on.. and it was BORING! - Well.. first things first.. glad we got the 3 points. sometimes they come in boring and/or lucky fashion - second, we were lucky to get the 3 points.. our defense in the 2nd half was simply inviting Augsburg to score.. so passive it seemed.. even though Bartra and Sokratis did have some vital interceptions, there's a lack of team defense.. like in the goal we conceded: all players converge in one spot leaving Toljan to cover 3 players - There's not much chemistry going forward, and we are often booting it forward from the back, instead of trying to build up play. Is this how it's been lately? Or was the team just tired? A tired team would explain why Bosz brought in Toprak for Kagawa. - The VAR! The penalty was called a while after the play, and for an offense which is not often penalized, in the pre-VAR era. That means either the rules of contact in the penalty area will drastically change, or we'll start to have very different rules being called in different leagues which use VAR. The latter would suck! (I mean already England play with very different rules re contact and fouls) - Kagawa's goal was a beauty! I wish more of our players played with a more relaxed mindset, which you need in order to be creative. Yarmolenko's pass to set it up was an example of that too. - We create a lot, but miss a lot. Obviously wasn't Auba's day, but also at least one bad decisions by Pulisic
Damn we got lucky with the 3 points. Bürki 7: did quite well with his positioning. Sokratis 8: absolute rock at the back Bartra 7: did well for the most part. Superb pass for that PEA miss. PEA 3: maybe it's the cold he got but was awful today. Yarmolenko 6: kept their defence busy. But no much else. Pulisic 6: he some neat dribbles but was kept in check. Kagawa 8: another one of his one excellent in every five awful games. Dahoud 4: invisible throughout. Weigl 5: fairly average display Castro 3: useless as usual Toljan 7: even on an average day he's one of our best defenders. LP 5: some decent crosses but wasn't challenged and went missing on the conceded goal. Max 6: wasn't on the pitch long enough to make anything happen. PB 5: he looks less and less convincing. Formations, substitutions and roles are all questionable. Going up against TTs Bayern seems very formidable. He needs Raphael back asap. And could do with Reus soon as well.
oh.. and Burki is one of the best keepers out there, BTW.. Kagawa is indeed very inconsistent! What is it? Is it only when he starts that he plays well??
It was a terrible performance. Auba, Dahoud and Pulisic were especially bad. Sokratis was making lots of mistakes as well, but in the end the team won. It's not easy to come back from a tough match against Madrid and win away. It's the sort of performances than wins league titles.
Pulisic wasn't bad. He was no way extraordinary nor did he shine but he made three vital passes that on a good day would have ended up in assists. Auba was horrific...worse than he played vs RM. I thought Sokra was rather solid in the back. Kagawa was rather good but the whole team took a dive in the last 30 minutes.
1. The high line is fine against every team in the Bundesliga except Bayern and Leipzig. The Bundesliga teams aren't good enough to take advantage and it's good to use game to game. He needs to change it up when he faces top teams, but he has yet to get the pressing of the forward players sorted. Reus and Auba are excellent and no when to press, Kagawa too. Yarmolenko/Philipp are not very good at it, whilst Pulisic is young and lacks the timing. 3. I wasn't that impressed with Sokratis, he made a lot of mistakes and could have given away a couple of penalties. Toprak has been better than him all season. 4. I really hope Bosz switches to a 4-2-3-1 to give us more defensive stability and allow Dahoud/Gotze to play in more natural positions. This won't be a factor in the league, but in the cup and CL it may be important. Lastly we really could do with having a left back healthy. Toljan has done a good job, but nothing beats having a natural left footer for balance. Raphael hopefully should be on the bench after the winter break.
I 100% agree with 1 and 3 above. I think Yarmolenko and Phillip need time to get accustomed to pressing. I think Sokratis was quite good. Better than he has been over the last year on average. Well good news for you and all of us. Rapahel Gurreiro trained individually for the first time today as his rehab program is over.
The bolded is great news. The Bayern loss is a nice boost for the players to have a little break. The team needed to take APOEL seriously, but if we can win the next 6 fixtures, the club will have excellent momentum going into the Bayern game.
I held off reading the thread because I hadn't watched the game until last night. My comments: 1) Sokratis can do "the Worm" while on his back. That was a desperate move and it worked. 2) Auba couldn't make it work today. Missed penalty, missed header, fizzled breakaway. Bad day at the office. 3) I was going to say Pulisic had a poor game, but if Auba had put that header away I would have called it a good game. The cross was perfect so really it was Auba's poor game and Pulisic was "just okay". Lost the ball several times trying to make things happen and wasn't at his most decisive. 4) Yarmolenko was good. He finds the right pass over and over. It lets him create more pressure on the wing then his (lack of) speed would allow otherwise. He has a good feel for the flow of the offense. 5) I don't think the penalty should have been given. Or else later when Sokratis held a player from jumping right in front of Burki you have to give that too. 6) The second half was awful.