...it doesn't matter who we are facing. Bottom line is that Castro is starting. Why why why??? Meanwhile Gotze, natural no. 10 not in the starting line up. No natural no. 8 Dahoud in the lineup. Faaackk you Stoeger. Fuucckkk you.
Not only has Reus returned, it appears that Stöger has turned Schürrle into another Marco Reus. Nice through ball there.
Goal by Schürrle for the lead, very nice assist by LP. Also, as usual, Reus shows his class right away after returning from an injury. Two dirty tackles by Bergamo in a row before the goal. Hope we survive this tie without injuries.
1:2, hard to say whether Bürki could have deflected that better but I'd say top class keepers don't let that happen.
Game really opening up . Castro is a passenger , Toljan being exposed again . I know he's out of position but , when you spend peanuts on a reserve from Hoffenhrim , what do you expect ? Stoeger too conservative , Still hasn't played Reus and Goetze together ?? Do not want to see him here next season .
MOTM Bats , not even our player . Reus looking good . Weigl must have listened to Aki . Burki' s season of woe continues . I know we have huge problems in defence and attack to address but we need better .
We better start negotiations with Chelsea for Bats. Splash the cash if need be. Other than that - the need for a better keeper is ever so evident, how Castro is in this squad is still a mystery and Toljan should be joining the Castro group of ''not good enough to play in BVB". I just hope we don't botch the game in Italy.
3:2 in the end. A game that showed the worst of us but also signs of a return to the nice football we got used to. I agree with those who see Batshuayi as a better fit for us than Auba. Auba's output was obviously fantastic for us but Bats seems to be the better fit for our style. Unfortunately, the better he will be for us, the less likely will it be to keep him if he is a success for us. Weigl is suspended for the return match which could mean we need to defend the lead with Sahin+Castro.
That was too hard. The attackers are doing their job with Reus and Batshuayi, three goals has to be a success. The defense is threadbare. On the bright side Toljan got experience and it was still a win? If you assume that Toljan and Pulisic continue to develop then it was good. They got experience without being great. If you assume this is close to their peak then it is just "phew, we escaped with no injuries but too many cards and goals allowed" with little else positive. If I were grasping I'd say "one more game for Gotze and Reus with no injury" also counts as good, since their return of form seems to me to be the biggest remaining room for improvement BVB have before the next window.
Castro with a pylonic performance as usual. Loses the ball without even trying to pass it. No traffic around him and the ball is gone. Worst player in a Sunday league. How in the blue hell does he play 90min????? Not sure what the hell happened with Toljan. He gets until the end of the season and then he's got to go. He's clearly not a natural LB. Mario Götze doesn't start yet bags two assists. Just stop experimenting and let him play as the no. 10. Michy was fantastic. We might have to pay up and keep him at this rate. Marco Reus is a hit or miss in the trequartista role so I've no idea why he's played there. Pulisic was really average. Dahoud improved the midfield a lot. Toprak and Schürrle are good when not under pressure and awful otherwise. Stöger needs to go at the end of the season. I don't care if we win the EL. We got owned by a Serie B side.
It is not like we didn't get around that for Auba so money shouldn't even be an issue. Watzke shouldn't be waiting around. Just get it done.
We managed to win the match but we are still not out of the woods yet. The fact that Atalanta scored 2 goals means all they will need to do next week is score a goal, keep a clean sheet and we're done for. We need to be better defensively. It's real shame Bats is only on loan, cause so far he's proving himself to be the real deal. Schürrle seems to finally be coming good, which pleases me greatly as I've been the only one championing him from the start. Finally I must conclude by writing that while many here think the Europa League is a waste of time, Slash in particular, we have no choice but to win the tournament, seeing as it is the only trophy we fighting for, and as insignificant as it may seem it is an international trophy nonetheless, which is one of two European trophies missing in our cabinet (the other one being the UEFA Supercup), and on a broader scale, us winning an international trophy would be hard proof that there's more to the Bundesliga than just Bayern.
As for Castro, it's a real shame he didn't suffer a torn ACL, because at this point it's the only guarantee we will ever have of him no playing. Already I can read the angry complaints from many of you about how my comments are disgraceful and that I should never wish injury on anyone but IDGAF.
EL winner also gets to play in the CL next year, so we might as well push in the EL just to be sure, as things for us the BL are more than shaky.